Part I

Prologue

The mid-afternoon sun shot its rays
through a sea of clouds and upon the shimmering surface of the real, endless sea
of the north. The rays bounced back and sprayed everywhere, imitating the great
rolling whitecaps as they rose from the waters, only to crash back in defeat.

From the eyes of the gulls that
sailed on the warm updrafts and the gentle zephyrs from lands unknown, there
appeared to be a tiny spattering of dots set in the aquamarine seascape. As the
birds drew closer, the dots revealed themselves to be tiny islands, the green
of their foliage making them resemble emeralds set in gold, surrounded by the
protection of a gargantuan, sapphire robe. There were four islands, one
resembling a colon turned on its side, one tall and ominous with its many
jagged peaks and mountains, one nearly covered in thick trees and shrubs, and
the last one, though not the largest, seemed the grandest of them all.

A large palace was built in the
center, surrounded by tiny villages and elegant gardens. The walls of the
palace were not built of stone and mortar, like many castles in other kingdoms,
but rather of light peach stucco, with Arabic designs winding their way up the
sides along with the creepers and vines that reached up towards the windows.
One tall tower protruded from the intersection point of two of the walls, with
one small window looking out at the outside world. Within the tower was a
single room, and within the room, two people were reading of kingdoms other
than their own.

“You’ve heard all the poetry and
stories concerning Atlantis, I’m sure,” said the older one.

“Most of it, I suppose,” replied
the younger one. She brushed her black hair away from her face, moved closer to
the other woman on the bed they were sitting on and turned her green eyes
toward the open pages of the thick volume that the other woman was holding.
“That Plato is a great storyteller.”

“He may be much more than that,
daughter,” replied the woman, smiling back at her child with a face that was a
near-perfect match in appearance and emotion, differing only in the years that
set the two apart. With a delicate white hand, she turned over the page, revealing
a beautiful, colored picture that spanned both of the leaves, etched in ink and
paint, depicting a young man in steel armor, holding his sword tightly in both
hands, kneeling before a blinding sun.

The girl gazed at it in awe. For
the past few hours she had been swimming through an ocean of stories, tales
from faraway lands, lands that never existed, lands that could only be seen by
wizards and shamans, and the histories of the people that lived in the
lands…gods, demons, giant reptiles with foot-long fangs and bat-like wings
called dragons, spirits that inhabited every living thing, even rocks and
trees, and then the stories of heroes who conquered these lands, heroes who
faced death and danger, then faced it again when they failed, which they never seemed
to do. They outwitted the most clever sorcerers and escaped the most vile
predicaments, with their mighty swords flashing light and fire, running for no
reason but to reach their goal, where they lived happily forever, so the story
goes. The only thing that the girl noticed was that there were no female heroes
in these stories. They always seemed to be either the damsel in distress, the
luring temptress or even the malevolent witch. Hardly any of the stories had
heroines, and that was the one thing that made her wonder.

Still, she enjoyed reading the
ballads of bravery, and everything else in the stories. It was even more
amazing when these epic tales were told in verse, how the words flowed and
hopped and skipped over each other, leaving the girl guessing ahead of time
which word that rhymed the best would come next. Some of the poems left her
quiet for several minutes, but she had yet to hear one from her mother that
made her decide to take a respite from the reading.

The girl’s mother seemed quite exhausted
from both the weight of the volume on her legs and the soreness of her mouth
from reciting the poems and stories from the book, with her daughter always
begging her to read another. In a concealed act of desperation, the woman
flipped through several of the weathered pages, catching brief glimpses of
long, artful, sweeping calligraphy and brilliant drawings and paintings, with
her daughter trying to persuade her to stop, only to be cut off as the pages
flipped past her eyes.

Finally, the girl’s mother stopped
at a page that seemed centuries older than the others, as if some spirit from a
long ago past had slipped it in, and hoped that someone would eventually find
it. The woman did feel a strange sensation in the air as she read the single,
11-line poem inscribed on the left page, bordered with arabesque patterns and
mystical swirls of blue ink. Though the girl could see it and read it clearly,
she still looked at her mother with a look that pleaded her to read it aloud.
The two both knew that something written was always different when read by
somebody. The woman cast a tired glance at her daughter, inhaled lightly, and
read:

Scheherazade, of hero’s might

Weave your adventures day and
night

Never falter, never fail

You’re the one who lives the
tale

Do not fear the unsheathed knife

Your dreams and thoughts become
your life

Fight demons in and out of you

Get through your woes and start
anew

Do what your heart knows is true

When you find love and you are
free,

Then a hero you will be.

When she finished reading, the young girl, who had
previously been peering over the manuscript with the physical posture of a
vulture, sat up straight and fell back slowly on the bed until she was lying
down, her eyes gazing at the canopy of her bed with a strange emptiness in
them, the strange beauty of the poem seeming to be progressively working itself
into her mind. Finally, there was a poem, even if just one, that mentioned a
heroine, a young woman from the Arabian Nights, in fact, the very creator of the
magical tales. The poem was just that, yet more than that, the delicately
interlocking lines seeming to weave an enchanted veil over her, leaving her
almost literally spellbound. Her mother curiously leaned over her, with a mix
of satisfaction and triumph in her face.

“Would you like to hear another one?” she asked,
with the comfort of the realization that she had found the one poem that caused
this final reaction in her child.

“No,” replied the girl softly, her eyes still
studying the folds in the canopy above her, the verses of the poem racing
across her memory like flying fish. “I think I’ll rest here for a while.”

“That’s fine,” replied her mother,
rising from the edge of the bed and placing the thick book upon her daughter’s
bedside table, leaving it open to the page on which the strange, enchanting
poem was written. She paused to scan it once more before concluding her reply:

“It takes a lot of poetry to make you
stop and think, doesn’t it, Cassima?”

Chapter
1:

King Caliphim, the ruler of the Land
of the Green Isles was seated on his golden throne in the high-vaulted chamber
of his palace, a beautifully handcrafted chair with red velvet cushions and a
detailed, floral pattern decorating the back. Several inches from the left arm,
adjacent to the king’s throne was another, identical seat, in which was sitting
his wife, Allaria, who was wearing a pale silk dress embroidered with flowers
at regular intervals. They were talking quietly, not loud enough so that the
guards near the double doors at the end of the throne room could hear, but at a
volume just high enough to let their words bounce off the walls and gradually
dissipate into the air.

“Yes, I know Cassima is a young
woman now,” said Allaria, gazing into her husband’s eyes with concern. “And no
other man in this realm seems to be worthy of her hand. She hasn’t shown much
interest in marriage, I’ll admit, but inside I’m sure she is willing to become
a bride.”

Caliphim stroked his white beard
pensively, his blue eyes gazing back at his wife’s. “True. Cassima has made
good friends in the past, and she is a noble person to know. Alhazred has been
asking about her frequently I the past months, and sometimes I wonder if he
knows something about my daughter that I don’t. I think I’ll ask him about that
now.”

The king rose slowly from his
throne and walked down the length of the hall, his footfalls muffled on the
brilliant red carpet. The guard dogs at the door stepped aside, their spears
raised to a parallel with their stoic postures. Stepping through the two
double-doors, Caliphim walked a short distance, then turned and ascended the
flight of stairs to his left, or, from the viewpoint of anyone standing at the
main doorway, the one to the right. It took him several seconds to reach the
top, with his decades catching up on him and his strength fading. From the top
of the staircase, Caliphim walked down the hallway, which was decorated with
gold-plated portraits and large, ornate vases lining the walls. Allaria had
been the main person behind the decoration of the castle when she and Caliphim
were crowned and her first words on the interior of the palace were “It could
use more a aesthetic atmosphere.”

Reaching the end of the hall,
Caliphim turned and found his vizier, Abdul Alhazred sauntering his way, clothed
in his clashing azure and rose-colored robes that he insisted upon wearing. His
face, as it always did, bore its typical look of a serious advisor combined
with a mind that was never short of “filled to the brim.” Upon seeing the king
approaching, however, his mouth curled into an appreciative smile and his arms
opened in an exuberant greeting.

“My Lord Caliphim, how pleasant to
see you off that binding throne of yours! Is everything well?”

“Yes and no, Alhazred. Allaria and
I are well, but our feelings about our daughter’s future are not.”

Alhazred’s face fell, but he only
hesitated a short period of time before picking it and his self-assured air
back up.

“My king, what is there that I can
do to assist you? Surely there is something I can do to help!”

“Well,” said Caliphim, assuming the
thoughtful, pondering expression of a long-lived monarch, “You know that I have
trusted you for many years, and in all these years very little misfortune has
befallen this kingdom. But lately there has been some unrest among the islands.
And you know that I have asked you on numerous occasions…”

“And you know that I have answered
on every one of these occasions that I know nothing of these peculiar
goings-on, though truly I wish I did. Perhaps it is something hidden on one of
the isles that the people do not wish to know about. It could be a malevolent
force coming from somewhere outside this realm. It could even be…”

“You’ve told me all that you know
and your many hypotheses over and over again, Alhazred,” said Caliphim said.
“And they have gotten us nowhere. So I find I can do nothing more than let the
issue rest for now. What concerns me now is Cassima.”

“The princess is well?” queried
Alhazred.

“Of course she is well physically,
it is the matter of marriage that I am speaking of.”

“Cassima is a beautiful girl,”
Alhazred said affectionately, “And any man in the kingdom would be more than
honored to know her, let alone wed her.”

“True, but my wife and I have found
no such man,” replied Caliphim. “This is a small kingdom, and our only
alternative seems to be a prince from the kingdoms beyond the Isles. Not many
of our people are able to leave this land, but some have in the past, and have
returned telling tales of lands totally different from ours, filled with
fantastic beasts and countless varieties of people. Surely among all these
people there has to be a prince suitable for my child.”

“Of course,” replied Alhazred,
smiling again, “But again, I believe we have gone over this topic before, and
my idea was to just let me think for a while. You know that great answers to
such questions do not occur overnight.”

“It has been many nights since I
first asked you about Cassima,” said Caliphim impatiently. “That was on her sixteenth
birthday. Now she is almost into her eighteenth year, and I have received no
enlightening solutions of this dilemma from you.”

“I don’t know what to say, my
king,” Alhazred said. “It is hard to solve such problems in such a tiny realm
as this, with barely any contact with the outer world. But as I’m sure you
know, I have knowledge of powers that will enable all of us to gain what we
seek. I have been studying the art of magic and I believe I have found some
means of finding a prince for your daughter. But this requires practice, and I
am not about to try such inexperienced, rash, advanced magic spells. But I
promise you, I will be working as fast as my schedule will allow me to help you
and your problem. Now, please excuse me, my liege.”

Alhazred turned and entered his
study, closing and locking the door behind him. Caliphim gazed at the closed
door and pondered the closed conversation that had just been concluded. Then,
with a heavy sigh and a hope that his trusted advisor would remain true to his
word, the king turned and began the slow journey back down the hall.

Chapter
2:

Dusk was slowly settling upon the
tiny archipelago, the shadows from the tallest isle bringing an early night to
all that lay east of it. Cassima, the young princess of the Green Isles was in
her room, standing in front of her dressing table. She had changed into a
casual, light blue dress, what her mother always told her was appropriate for
wearing at meals. Only an hour or two remained before the bell for supper would
ring, and the servants and guards would come flying from whatever task they
were indulged in, drawn like iron to a magnet to the dining room, where some
elegant meal would be waiting to be devoured.

Fit for a queen, right,
thought Cassima, still studying the reflection of herself in the mirror. The
face that she always saw whenever her mother was in front of her looked back.
She was a near-perfect reflection of her mother: the long, black onyx hair, the
emerald green eyes, and the clear, pale face. There was little that she saw
that reminded her of her father, though, and Cassima sometimes wondered that if
she had a brother, would he resemble her father? Her father’s hair and beard
were gray and starting to turn white now. Her mother had told her that it was
once black, just like hers and Cassima’s. The only real difference between him
and his mother and daughter were his eyes: a piercing blue that few men, even
young ones, possessed. However, Cassima had seen few men in her lifetime, and
thus was unable to make a fair comparison of her father, or any of the other
men she saw in the castle.

Alhazred was anything but a good
man, even Cassima was right about that. He always seemed to have something on
his mind that was the complete opposite of what someone was talking to him
about. And then there were the guard dogs, an odd species that Caliphim said
had originated from another island, were taken to the Isle of the Crown, and
shortly afterwards, the isle had vanished…sunken, Cassima assumed, or otherwise
moved to a new location. She supposed the guards could be considered human,
since they were intelligent, walked upright and understood their loyalty to the
Crown. Still, they were different, nonetheless…

Then there was Ulrica, the only
female guard dog on the entire island, who lived in a tiny room in the
basement. She was the royal nurse, and was always ready treat Cassima’s wounds
whenever she fell out of a tree or tripped and fell on the hem of her dress.
Even now, when Cassima was of age to marry, she still seemed to injure herself
in the oddest ways, and Ulrica never asked any probing questions of the
princess. But she still had much to talk about…

Cassima wetted her fingers in the
large jug of water on her dressing table, lifted her hair up with the back of
her hand and readjusted the golden locket she wore around her neck. The locket
was in the shape of a heart with the insignia of a crown on the front. Inside
were twin portraits of her parents, Caliphim and Allaria. Cassima’s mother had
given the necklace to her when she was still very young, but old enough not to
put anything that could be picked up in her mouth. Cassima had worn it every
day since then, with the exceptions of the times that it had to be either
polished, have a new clasp fastened, or when she unintentionally lost it, and
in between that time and the time she or another person found it, the castle
would be exploding with activity, every servant tripping over another servant
in a desperate scramble to find her locket before everything fell apart completely.

A warbling note from the window of
her room made Cassima turn her head. Her gray nightingale, Sing-Sing, was
perched on the window ledge, eyeing her with curiosity. Actually, Sing-Sing
wasn’t Cassima’s pet, just as no wild creatures are truly tamed, but was rather
an orphaned fledgling that Cassima had found in the royal gardens, taken in and
raised to adulthood. She and Sing-Sing had formed a close friendship, and many
of the guards exchanged rumors that the bird and the princess could actually understand
each other.

Cassima smiled, then glided to the
window and extended her hand. The gray nightingale hopped onto her fingers, its
magenta crest raised in excitement. Cassima raised her hand and the bird
flapped into the air, coming to a rest on her left shoulder, where it
affectionately nibbled her ear and twittered gently. The princess slowly walked
over to her bedside table, where her eyes immediately fell upon the open pages
of the old tome and the 11-line, mesmerizing poem written on the first page,
the same way her mother had left it several days ago. Cassima paused and read
the poem once to herself, then aloud, well aware of the influence spoken words
can have upon a person.

Scheherazade, of hero’s might

Weave your adventures day and
night

Never falter, never fail

You’re the one who lives the
tale

Do not fear the unsheathed knife

Your dreams and thoughts become
your life

Fight demons in and out of you

Get through your woes and start
anew

Do what your heart knows is true

When you find love and you are
free,

Then a hero you will be.

Again, the strange pulsation of
energy moved through her, a slow warmth that enclosed her spine and limbs.
Sing-Sing peered at Cassima with a combination of concern and that familiar, burning
curiosity. For several minutes, she could hear nothing else but the poem
echoing in her head.

Chapter
3:

A sudden knock on the door and a
jingle of bells brought Cassima out of her trance with a start. She turned to
the door and recited the familiar, generic phrase that one always uses when
someone unknown is standing outside their door:

“Who is it?”

“It is Jollo, princess! May I come
in?”

“Sure,” replied Cassima, turning
and sitting down on her bed. The door of her room opened and in waltzed her
father’s court jester, Jollo. The sight of him never failed to make Cassima
laugh. He seemed to have a different combination of clothing for every day of
the year. Today it was a crimson vest with a brilliant orange pair of pants
that completely covered his boots but failed to muffle the sounds of the bells
that were attached to the curved toes of each. His childish, bumbling voice
topped off his clownish appearance. It was no wonder that everyone in the
palace (with the exception of Alhazred) loved him.

“Cassima, dear, you seem a bit
quieter than usual lately. I wanted to ask if anything was wrong.”

“Nothing is really wrong, Jollo,”
said Cassima nonchalantly, “I think it was that poem that Mother read to me a
few days ago. It was so beautiful and I don’t know why.”

“Which poem, Cassima?”

“The one on the left page of that
open book,” said Cassima, gesturing to her table. Jollo jingled over to the
open book and read the writing on the first page. As he did so, his eyes
widened in silent awe, the same awe that Cassima felt when she heard it first.

“It is very pretty,” said Jollo,
still spellbound by the verses, walking over and sitting on Cassima’s bed, next
to her. “It’s almost like magic.”

“Magic? Jollo, you don’t mean those
little tricks you always perform for Father and Mother, do you?”

“Oh no, those are just things that
jesters like me learn to keep our audience confused. That’s what keeps their
attention. But this poem of yours…it feels like genuine magic to me.”

“Wow. I thought that poem sounded
magical, Jollo, but I had no idea that it might be…”

“It may not be, Cassima,” put in
Jollo. “Maybe I’m just a dreamer who always calls things I can’t explain magic.
That’s why I’ve always stuck to these little illusions and sleight-of-hand
tricks.”

Cassima paused for a moment, trying
to understand what her friend said. “Still,” she said after a few moments, “I
just don’t see how you are able to do things like making birds and flowers
appear without the aid of real magic.”

“There are many things someone can
do without ‘real’ magic, princess,” said Jollo. “Why, I know how to summon the
voices of the sea nymphs with just a glass goblet half-filled with water!”

“You’re joking, Jollo.”

“No, really, Cassima!” Jollo
pleaded, pulling a wine glass out of his inner vest pocket. “I can prove it to
you! Just bring me that jug of water from your dresser over there.”

Cassima rose slowly, as Sing-Sing
trilled anxiously, walked across the room and picked up the pitcher and carried
it back to the bed. Jollo took it from her and filled the goblet halfway. Then
he dipped his finger in the water and rubbed it around the rim of the glass. A
loud, piercing, throbbing note filled the room, like the echo of a bell only
softer and more mysterious. It did sound as if the voices of the sea nymphs
were passing through the room. Cassima listened in amazement, while Sing-Sing
ruffled her feathers as if in jealousy.

“It’s not magic,” explained Jollo
after the sound had died down. “It’s something called a glass harp. It’s quite
simple, really. You can put more water in the goblet and it sounds different.”
He filled the glass until it was about three quarters full and moved his finger
around the circumference of the ring again. This time the note was deeper and
fuller, but it still awed Cassima, drawing her closer to Jollo and his strange
“instrument.”

“Here. You can play it,” said Jollo
encouragingly, handing Cassima the glass. She eyed it carefully, trying to see
if anything made this wine glass any different from any other wine glass,
finding nothing, then raising her finger to the edge of the rim and running it
around the glass counter-clockwise. No sound came from the glass, no sea-nymph
song, and Cassima looked at Jollo in puzzlement, not understanding that he
could make it make noise and she couldn’t.

“You have to put your finger in the
water first,” said Jollo gently. Cassima obediently touched the water
delicately with her finger, then wound it around the rim of the glass again. A
rich, wailing tone filled the room, filling the ears of both human and bird.
Cassima stopped, looked at the glass, then at Jollo and laughed like a child.

“It’s so amazing!” she cried. “And
you say it’s not magic?”

“I promise you, Cassima, it isn’t!”
chuckled Jollo. Cassima focused her attention back on the glass and began
rubbing her finger around the rim, this time more rapidly, creating a
resounding harmony that penetrated her mind just like the poem had. Imagine,
she thought, if there were more than one! What amazing sounds that would
make! It is like the sea-nymphs! It’s beautiful…

Just as she was starting to fall
into the hypnotic rhythm of the glass harp, a sudden spark of pain hit her
finger, causing her to snatch it away from the rim and press it between her
lips.

“Ouch!” she exclaimed, spilling
some of the water on the carpet. Drawing her hand away from her lips she saw
that the tip of her right index finger had a sharp cut down its middle and was
bleeding.

“Oh no,” shuddered Jollo, taking
the glass from the girl and examining her injured finger. “That glass must’ve
had a sharp edge! Oh, I’m so sorry, princess, I didn’t know…please don’t be
angry…”

“Ow,” said Cassima. “I’m not angry,
I’m just hurt. Merciless glass.”

“I think you should see Ulrica,
princess,” said Jollo. “Would you like me to take you down to her?”

“No, no, Jollo. That’s all right.
I’m not mad at you, you understand. Just the glass.”

“You’re as kind as your mother,
Cassima. Well, I’ll clean up this mess and tell your parents what happened…”

“Please don’t, Jollo,” said
Cassima, opening the door to her room. “I can tell them myself. Don’t fret
about me just because I cut myself.”

“Yes, majesty,” said Jollo, walking
out the door, down the hallway and down the stairs. Cassima followed him down
the stairs and across the main hall, through the basement door (which she
opened with her left hand, her right one being inoperative with her injured
finger) and down the stairs to the ground floor of the Castle of the Crown.

From there, Jollo turned to the
left and walked down to his room, while Cassima continued down the corridor,
into the guardroom and to a tiny room in one corner, hardly more than a closet.
A thick cloth obscured the doorway. Cassima knocked on the wall beside the
door, and a gruff, female voice snorted:

“Yes, who is it?”

“Cassima, Ulrica. Jollo said to
come down here.”

“Another scrape, princess?”

“Well, yes,” said Cassima, not
unwilling to not share such a minor injury. “Jollo was teaching me how to play
the glass harp and the harp had a sharp string.”

“Ah,” said the voice again. A
plump, female dog drew back the curtain and gestured for Cassima to come in.
Cassima seated herself on a low stool. The dog examined her cut with probing
eyes and whiskers, then began searching through a small pouch of doctoring
supplies.

Ulrica wasn’t a purebred dog, like
Saladin, Gruff, Rowlf and the other guards. She wasn’t sleek and shiny, nor was
she short and squat like the bulldog guards. Her fur was scruffy, patchy and
unkempt, Ulrica obviously paid little attention to the proverb, “physician,
heal thyself.” She was of no specific breed, and in normal terms she would have
been labeled a mutt, but neither she nor Cassima or any of the inhabitants of
the castle called her that. She was stout for her size, but not grossly
overweight. She was just, in short, different.

Ulrica turned around, clutching a
roll of white cloth and a surgical knife in her round paws.

“Here. Let me bind your wound with
this.”

Cassima extended her finger and the
dog carefully wrapped the thin strip of fabric around the tip of the girl’s
finger, then tying it off and smartly slicing off the end with her knife and
shoving the remainder of the bandage back in her bag.

“I heard the two of you playing up
there,” said Ulrica softly. “Very beautiful.”

“Thanks,” said Cassima. “Did you
hear me talking to Jollo about the poem too?”

“No. I don’t hear everything,
child.”

“Well, it’s something my mother
read to me a few days ago. It’s incredible. It’s about that woman named
She-hara…I never can remember how to pronounce it…’

“I think it is Sche-her-a-zade, Cassima,”
said Ulrica, pronouncing each syllable for the princess. “And yes, I know her
story.”

“I seem to, but I don’t,” said
Ulrica. “By the way, I think that Scheherazade is not that different from you,
Cassima.”

“Really? I never thought that…”

“You should. She was an ordinary
woman who became a hero in such a simple way…And I think you have a hero’s potential,
princess.”

Cassima was about to reply “I don’t
think I do” when the supper bell rang and the halls sprang to life with
activity. She rose from the stool and headed towards the door to the guardroom.

“Remember what I said, princess,”
said Ulrica. “I smell deceit in this stronghold. I don’t know why, I just do.
Be careful, Cassima.”

Cassima looked back at the old
nurse for a moment, trying to decide whether to appear awed or humored. She
never made her decision, for the increasing sound coming from above called her
away from Ulrica’s room and up the stairs, into the dining hall where her
parents awaited.

Chapter
4:

To a fellow member of the Black
Cloak: Mordack, greetings from a fellow sorcerer, Grand Vizier to the Ruler of
the Green Isles, Abdul Alhazred.

Pausing briefly to refill his pen,
Alhazred quickly scanned the beginning of his letter and continued writing:

I have taken into account your extended admiration
of the Princess Cassima, and have attempted to make your request beneficial to
the both of us.

Again the vizier paused to read
over another, older piece of parchment on the desk. His lamp lay inactive to
one side, useless in the brilliant noontime sunlight coming in through his
window.

As my last letter stated, my plan is in motion. My
trustworthy servant, Shamir, has spread the necessary rumors and thus produced
adequate unrest throughout the kingdom. No one has yet to accuse me as the
rogue…

Here Alhazred crossed out the word
“rogue” and tried to formulate a better word.

…as the villain…

He crossed this out as well, the
term still not suitable for this formal note. After minutes of thought,
Alhazred retrieved the elongated, narrow-necked, blue bottle from the right
corner of the desk and uncorked it, quietly whispering into the mouth:

“Shamir! What is a good word for a
man who is accused of evil deeds and has been in hiding for a long period of
time?”

A high-pitched, mischievous voice
came out of the vessel: “How about ‘Alhazred?’ Hee-hee-hee-heeee…”

“Not funny, Shamir! Be serious and
answer! What word would best fit that description?”

“’Wrongdoer,’ Master?”

“No…too common.”

“’Blackguard?’”

“No…”

“’Snake in the grass?’”

“Ah-ha! That sounds good.
Excellent. I’m corking you up now, Shamir.”

“Yes master,” said the voice as Alhazred
jammed the stopper back into the bottle and placed it where it once was.

…as the snake in the grass
behind the whole scheme. The King and Queen and sometimes even their nosy
little daughter ask me if I know anything about it, but I always tell them I
know nothing, but I will work on it.

Alhazred chuckled at his own joke,
and resumed his writing:

Lately the royal couple has been asking me
questions about their daughter, Cassima, since, as you know, she has come of
age and no prince in the kingdom seems fit to wed her. I “hinted” that a man
from another country would be the best, but not necessarily a prince…

Again he laughed, almost smearing
the ink as he moved to refill his pen, which was still wet on the paper.

But still, no one suspects me. So,
now to business:

Four nights from now, I will
bring the princess out on the main beach, where you will easily arrive without
stirring up anything. You will take her back to your island, where you can do
whatever you wish with the girl. I suggest killing her, but I warn you not to
leave any traces. Otherwise, you might be in trouble as well as me. Again, the
date is four nights from now. Send your reply via my genie, Shamir, who
undoubtedly will be there when he delivers this note…

As the vizier wrote, a slight hint of roses reached
his nostrils. At first he assumed it was something blowing in from the window,
a rogue breeze, perhaps, but as he tried to ignore it and continue his work,
the hint slowly swelled into a full-blown solution, a strong blend of flowers
and scents.

Sensing movement from behind his
left shoulder, Alhazred slowly turned his head to the left, seeing nothing out
of the ordinary until his head had nearly reached the point where it couldn’t
turn any more, and then there was still nothing.

Confused and now paranoid, Alhazred
twisted his head around to its normal, forward position and found another head
looking over his right shoulder. It was Cassima. She was standing several feet
from him, but still too close to be observing him from the door. In a desperate
move, the vizier flung his arm over his still-moist letter and mashing it flat,
realizing too late his mistake. Hissing and cursing under his breath, he turned
to face the princess.

“What? What is it, princess?”

“I was going to ask you something,
but since you seem so busy now, Alhazred…”

“No…I mean, yes…what did you want
to ask me?” snarled Alhazred, trying to hide his secrecy behind a semi-friendly
attitude.

“I think you know, Alhazred,” said
Cassima, with an innocent, yet sassy demeanor. “Father has been asking you if
you know anything about the tension between the isles, and you promised him a
hundredfold that you would do something about it. And you don’t seem to be
doing that to me.”

“I am, Cassima, and you are
breaking my concentration!”

“You were laughing, and I don’t see
what kind of concentration I could be breaking with you doing that.”

“All right, you little
eves-dropper!” snapped Alhazred, flailing his pen with the hand that wasn’t
stuck to his letter, “So I wasn’t working on solving the mysteries of the
kingdom! I just happen to have other matters besides that! Are you satisfied
now, princess??”

“Not quite. You’re up to something.
You haven’t been showing yourself much lately.”

“It’s all in that tiny mind of yours,
girl! Go tell that to someone with time on his hands!”

Cassima, quite used to such furious
insults flying from her father’s vizier, replied: “It’s not all in my head,
Alhazred. Ulrica told me that she sensed something as well.”

“That illegitimate mongrel says
anything to be on your side! Name something she’s said that is her own word and
thought, and I’ll be a winged basilisk!”

“I think it’s too late for that,
Alhazred.”

“Get out of here, wench! Get out of
here before I tell my genie to transform into a tumor and make a nest in that
smart little brain of yours!”

“All right, I’m going, I’m going,”
said Cassima, turning smartly on her heel and quickly walked out the door to
his study, barely missing being speared with the vizier’s pen, which he had
suddenly thrown in her direction, spraying ink everywhere before hitting the
wall several inches from the door, then snapping off at the nib and falling
with a clatter on the floor.

Still churning with fury, Alhazred
peeled his arm from his letter, the impact of the two objects colliding had
created a regular Rorschach pattern on his sleeve and the parchment, beyond
examining, let alone reading. Swearing with rage, he crumpled the ruined letter
and tossed it aside, pulled a new piece of paper out from the stack under his
lamp, knocking it off the table, where it shattered on the floor, then pulled a
new pen out of one of his drawers, nearly breaking the nib as he jabbed it into
the inkwell and quickly scrawled out another letter, many times shorter than
the previous attempt:

Mordack –

I’m bringing her to the beach
tonight. Be there to take her to your isle. Don’t fail.

Signed,

Adbul Alhazred

Chapter
5:

Cassima’s sleep was restless that
night. The memory of what Ulrica said about deception being within the castle
kept her awake, often sitting up in her bed, staring at the canopy. And what
she said about that woman being so much like her…her name…Schahere –
again, she couldn’t remember the name…so long and ornate…just like the
calligraphy of the poem itself. The poem…

Cassima rose from her bed and felt
her way through the darkness, broken only by the light of the crescent moon, to
her bedside table. The lantern beside her bed was glowing faintly, and in its
glow she could just make out the poem, and its words…

Scheherazade, of hero’s might

Weave your adventures day and
night…

A sudden noise, a muffled thud from the corridor
caused Cassima to jump in surprise, her heart beating rapidly. But again, the
mystical essence of the poem brought her back to it:

Never falter, never fail

You’re the one who lives the
tale

Do not fear the unsheathed knife

Your dreams and thoughts become
your life

Fight demons in and out of you…

Again, a noise broke the silence, this time closer to
her bedroom door, though she was tempted to leave, she couldn’t break herself
from the verses…

Get through your woes and start
anew

Do what your heart knows is
true…

Another crash from outside. This time it was too
much. She couldn’t finish the poem. Cassima grabbed her lantern, flung open her
door and stepped outside in her bare feet. It was cold in the castle halls,
especially in her thin nightgown, pink silk embroidered with jasmines. Her gold
locket felt like ice against her neck. With her free hand, she grasped it, the
soft metal slowly growing warm in her grasp.

Yet another noise from down the
hall, this time around the corner. With her heart and gait quickening, Cassima
walked down the hall, expecting to see Alhazred, some dark wizard or a trained
assassin. But surprisingly, it was none of these.

It was Shamir Shamazel, Alhazred’s
genie. She seldom saw him without his master, and seeing him here, clad in his
silly, pointed turban, golden eyes, baggy pants and large, overly decorated
necklace shocked her more than any wizard or murderer could have.

“Oooooh, Princess Cassima!” Shamir
said in his high-pitched, impish voice, his eyes twinkling. “Didn’t expect to
find you outside your room in the dead of night!”

“”Shamir…it was you making those
noises, wasn’t it?” asked Cassima, that being the only question she could think
of offhand.

“I fear so, princess. So sorry to
disturb your beauty rest!”

“Oh, you’re forgiven, Shamir,” said
Cassima, suspecting his usual tricks and pranks that he occasionally pulled,
especially on her.

“Yes, princess,” said Shamir, his
voice suddenly softer and more solemn. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’ll have to
take you somewhere.”

“What? What do you mean?” Cassima
asked, shocked that this normally benign genie would suddenly make such a
hostile comment. It had to be a joke…

“I cannot tell you, princess,” said
Shamir, suddenly making a move to seize Cassima’s free hand. She jerked it out
of the way, then, in an attempt to wake whoever was sleeping nearby and summon
help, she let the lantern the was carrying fly from her grasp, hoping for a
good, solid crash against the wall. The stucco walls of the palace could not
burn.

But the lantern didn’t crash. In
fact, at the same time Cassima sent it flying, Shamir pointed his hand directly
at the airborne lamp and seemed to “catch” it in midair…only his hand didn’t
touch it. Instead, the lantern was floating just above the carpet. As if in
mockery, Shamir played with it, twirling it around and making it swerve and
dip, but never once letting it fall.

“Can’t make any noise, princess,”
he said with a hint of sadness in his voice and another flash of his yellow
eyes. “You must come with me.” Here he gently set the lantern down and out of
Cassima’s reach.

Suddenly an empty feeling exploded
in Cassima’s throat, and at the same time her speech stopped, leaving her mute
and even more shocked than she had been before. Grasping her hand to her throat
and struggling to speak, she glared at Shamir, who was clutching something in
one of his hands. What did you do, she tried to say, only expelling air
but leaving the genie with the impression that she wasn’t happy.

“Sorry,” whispered Shamir. “I had
to take that from you as well. No noise, princess. Now you must come with me.
My master will not approve of my being late.”

There was no time for asking questions or even
trying to ask them, for Shamir had pointed his other hand at her and her wrists
had snapped together in some kind of invisible bond, rendering her helpless.
Still Cassima refused to move.

Seeing that she would not be led anywhere, Shamir
grabbed her around the waist and before Cassima could break his grasp, their
bodies were enveloped in a cloud of smoke, and when it cleared, there was a
smell of salt in the air and a light wind around their legs. They were standing
on the beach of the Isle of the Crown, with the sea before them and the path to
the village behind. In her silk nightdress, Cassima was shivering within
seconds. Her awe at the sudden change in setting turned to rage when she
noticed Alhazred standing near the shore, looking out at the waves.

You, she tried to yell in her silenced state,
I knew you were plotting something! What else have you done that you
haven’t told anybody but your nefarious genie and your outlaw allies –

“Shamir?” asked Alhazred, as if Cassima weren’t
there, “I think it is safe to give the little wildcat back her speech now. No
one can hear her, no matter how loud she is.”

Shamir flicked open his hand, and the empty space in
Cassima’s throat was instantly replenished.

“ – If my father knew about this,” yelled Cassima,
not even noticing that she was once again capable of talking, “He would have
you serving as mortar in the basement walls!”

“I’m afraid that will not happen, my dear Cassima,”
said Alhazred aloofly. “And even if it does, you will not be here to witness
it.”

“What do you mean? What’s going on?”

Alhazred did not answer. He simply stood with his
eyes on the horizon, as he had been since Cassima and Shamir arrived. The
princess was still trying to free herself from the genie’s arms, but only
succeeding in flopping like a fish and twisting about like a person possessed.
After a few minutes, Alhazred stamped his foot in frustration and again looked
out over the water.

“Confound it! Where is that boarish oaf of a
sorcerer! He should have been here minutes ago!”

“Sorcerer? Alhazred, I knew you were in
cahoots with someone dark, but an actual sorcerer…you must be from
that…”

“Finally! Here he is!” roared Alhazred, squinting
his eyes at the heavens.

“Here comes whaaa-aa-aaaa – “ Cassima’s mouth
dropped open before she could finish her sentence. A brilliant, pulsing red
light was screaming across the water, creating an eerie, sanguineous reflection
on the now churning waves, heading straight for the beach they were standing
on. Unable to face it any longer, Cassima closed her eyes and prayed that the
light would destroy her gently, but before she could cry for help, the light
stopped. Every part of it seemed to stop. The glow, the motion, the color, and
even the chaos it carried.

Daring to peer through the meshes of her lashes that
blocked her nearly-closed eyes, Cassima saw a strange, dark figure floating
several feet above the shoreline. Opening her eyelids fully, she noted that the
figure was a man, with tenebrous, bark-like skin, pale, gray eyes and a black
goatee similar to Alhazred’s. He wore dark clothes and a long black cape that
floated around his feet. He was standing – or from her view, floating – on a
pillow of gray smoke, giving him an appearance of a classic genie, except he
did not appear willing to do her bidding at all. In fact, it seemed to be quite
the opposite.

“Cassima,” he purred in a voice nearly identical to
Alhazred’s when he was flattering someone. “I am the wizard Mordack. How
pleasant to meet you here tonight.”

Chapter 6:

“Alhazred, who is this man?”
Cassima asked, ignoring the wizard’s introduction.

“I think he clearly told you,
princess,” said Alhazred, with an ugly, curling smile not unlike a snake’s
grin.

Cassima gave Shamir a good kick in
the leg with her bare foot and finally broke free, standing before the morbid
wizard with the ferocity of a tiger.

“It’s bad enough that your friend
Alhazred made his genie drag me from my room in the middle of the night and
down to this barren beach to almost get blinded by your approaching entourage
of fire, brimstone and who knows what! If this is your idea of a joke, I’m not
in the mood for it!”

Mordack raised an eyebrow and still
stared at Cassima with those cold, gray eyes. “This is not a joke, young
Cassima,” he said coolly. “Sorry that you were so disillusioned into believing
that it was.”

He slowly turned his head to face
Alhazred. “I’ll take her to my island, like you said, Alhazred.”

“And then you’ll kill her?” asked
Alhazred. Cassima staggered in shock as the vizier’s face contorted into an
expression of glee and greed. Her locket beat against her chest from the
outside just as her heart was beating at it, only from the inside.

“Kill her?? No,” said Mordack,
looking shocked at his companion’s suggestion. For the first time, Cassima felt
what seemed like good feelings towards him. “I couldn’t kill a beautiful little
jewel like this. I’ll only take her where no one on this island can get to. I
promise you that, brother of the Black Cloak.”

Again, rage overflowed in Cassima’s
heart as she looked back and forth to Alhazred, the traitor, and Mordack, the
one who was going to take her from her home and family…it couldn’t be
happening…

“Guards!!” Cassima screamed.
“Guards! Help! Alhazred has betrayed the Crown! Guards!!” Though within she
knew that her screams were useless, she continued crying for help until Mordack
twirled the fingers on one of his hands, causing her to spin around and fly
into his chest.

“Farewell, Alhazred,” said Mordack
loudly, over Cassima’s yells and cries. “I may meet you again…but Cassima will
not. I assure you.”

“You’d better teleport out of here
now before she wakes the whole island,” snapped Alhazred hurriedly.

“Well…” said Mordack, showing a
touch of embarrassment for the first time, “I…I…can’t teleport.”

“You what?!?” roared
Alhazred loudly. “I ask you to take the girl away quickly and you show up
saying you can’t teleport!?! One of the most basic wizarding tricks and
you can’t do it…”

“I’m sorry,” pleaded Mordack, “I
can’t teleport…at least not with two people. I can handle myself, but if I
tried it with this girl, she might be left here.”

“Well, why don’t you give it a
try?” snarled Cassima, now trying to break his grasp as she had with Shamir’s.

“Shut up!” said Mordack, squeezing
her tighter until she was almost breathless. “The only form of
self-transportation I can do with more than one being is the form I
demonstrated when I arrived. It is similar to flying, only I am protected from
other airborne objects like birds and dragons. I also do it in order to achieve
a grand entrance, like I just did.”

Dragons? thought Cassima
worriedly. Where are we going?

“It takes only a few minutes, an hour at the most,”
Mordack went on, “And I can reach my isle in no time. It is just down the
northern sea and over Serenia. Well…I’ll be leaving now.”

“Noooo!” Cassima wailed as Alhazred
grinned again and waved good-bye and Shamir did the same. At the same time the
cloud she and Mordack were on turned around and shot into the night sky. A
reddish cloud enveloped them, and although she could still breathe, Cassima
felt the thinning of the air and the strong winds pushing against them as they
coursed through the stars. Clouds streaked by like long, white snakes and stars
became comets at the speed she and Mordack were going.

After several minutes, light began
to appear and soon the sky was its typical, calm, azure blue. Cassima was
mournful and at the same time furious that she couldn’t enjoy it. The dark
wizard, appearing no darker than he was in the night, was still clutching her
waist, giving her the message that he could squeeze the air out of her if she
tried to get out of his arms. But there would be no harm in just asking him
something…

“Mordack,” she yelled over the
noise, remembering what Alhazred had called him. “What did you mean when you
said ‘we’re going to my island?’”

“I meant what I said,” said
Mordack, his voice rippling backwards with the fierce winds. “You and I are
going to my island. It is my own creation. I’m sure you will like it.”

Oh sure, Cassima thought,
hoping that the sorcerer wasn’t a mind reader. There didn’t seem to be anything
else to do but enjoy the ride. One wrong move and he could probably just drop
her. Her locket was wildly dancing in the air, and it seemed ready to break
free, but Cassima grasped it firmly with her hands, determined not to let go of
the one thing she had to remind her of her parents.

The clouds they were passing
through suddenly cleared and the pearly ocean appeared hundreds of feet below
them. But there wasn’t just ocean, there was also land below, a huge,
mountainous piece of terra firma set in the sea, with a beach skirting the
coastline. The peaks of the mountains rose through the curtains of clouds and
out of sight, even from the two airborne humans.

“What is that?” Cassima cried.

“Serenia, girl,” said Mordack. “Just a large continent
connected to the land of Daventry. It’s also home to that infernal, soft wizard
Crispinophur…”

Cassima wasn’t listening to what
Mordack said after “Daventry.” She had heard the name before in stories and
myths told by her mother, as well as Serenia. Could this mean that this wizard
was taking her to one of these lands? He said it was an island…were there
islands off the coast of Serenia?

With her dreams growing stronger
and her grip growing weaker, Cassima’s locket suddenly whipped back and the
golden chain snapped. She made a desperate grab for it as it fell, but Mordack
seized her wrist and glared at her maliciously.

“Do not try that again,” he
growled, “Unless you want to fall the rest of the way to my island!”

“You just lost it,” snapped
Mordack, squeezing her chest tighter. “It’s probably landed on that beach down
there, but I’m not going down just for some scrap of jewelry! And you also have
that pretty dress you’re wearing, so stop complaining!”

Cassima suddenly realized that she
was still wearing her nightgown, and other than that, she had nothing on. Her
face felt hot, and she closed her eyes and pursed her lips, not wanting to
think about it anymore.

Finally, they began to descend. The
air grew humid and salty with the smell of the sea and a thick, black mist
replaced the white clouds. As they flew on, almost skimming the surface of the
sea, the red aura surrounding them dissolved and Cassima could clearly see
something coming out of the mist. It wasn’t moving, but since they were still
flying along at a fair speed, it seemed like it was.

“It” vaguely resembled an island,
but looked more like a frozen volcano, with lava pouring into the sea, but the
majority of it seemed to be floating above the water. On the “island” was a
castle; a castle being the thing it was most similar to, which appeared as if
it had grown out of the rocks like a malignant fungus. It was repulsive to look
at, and Cassima found herself turning away to avoid the nauseating feeling that
was growing in her. The water beneath their feet was black, just like the mist
surrounding them. As they drew closer, with no sign of slowing down, Cassima
began to feel the same anxiety that she had when Mordack’s fireball was first
streaking towards her and she felt it was going to crash into her. Now it was
the reverse, it seemed that she was going to crash into the land, but the
wizard? Who knows what he would think of that…

Before she could think any more,
they had swooped upwards over a narrow, rocky beach and equally rocky path,
over the heads of two twin serpents with hostile eyes that seemed to glow as
they passed, and finally skidding to a stop on a flat, stone pathway, which
would have led to the iron portcullis barring the massive doorway before them,
but for some reason, it was rived halfway down, leaving a wide gap between them
and the gate.

Before Cassima could say anything,
Mordack reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a long, thin, ebony
wand, then pointed it at the gap. A tiny, white spark shot out of the tip of
the wand and the gap suddenly vanished. It was as if the sides of the path had
grown together like skin closing over a wound. Mordack then raised his wand at
the gate, which sprang open like a mousetrap, opening into a gloomy, uninviting
hall. Cassima could not make out anything inside.

The wizard swiftly crossed the once
empty space in the road and gestured for Cassima to follow. The princess was
reluctant at first, but when Mordack’s hand tightened on his wand, she decided
to do what he commanded. Her actions were not a second too soon, for as soon as
she stepped over the gate threshold, the path split again, revealing the wide,
gaping hole again.

“Inside,” Mordack said coldly,
stepping inside the castle. Cassima silently shrugged and followed him inside.
As soon as she was standing in what she decided was the main hall of the
castle, the portcullis fell shut with a loud crash behind her. There was no way
back now.

Chapter
7:

“All right, Cassima,” said Mordack
when the dust from the crash finally settled, smoothing back his flat hair and
his cape, “Now to talk about why I brought you here.”

Cassima said nothing; her emotions
and morals were too strong to let her make a snappy retort.

“Alhazred has told me about you,
and how beautiful you were, even as a child. Of course, I can’t tell you what
else he told me, but the one thing I was certain of when I met you in person:
You are indeed a beautiful creature.”

“Thanks,” replied Cassima
indifferently, trying to look at the least ugly furnishing in the hall they
were in. Everything was covered in dust or rat-eaten cloths. Cobweb-laced
chandeliers, in many cases more web than metal, clung to the ceiling like bats,
looking ready to fall at any moment. A plain, undecorated door was in the left
wall, leading to another section of the castle. Further down the hall was a
long dining table, in no better condition than the rest of the place, with at
least ten chairs set along it, though it was obvious they were rarely used. The
legs of some were rotting, as were the backs. Near the end of the hall was
another doorway, giving no hint as to where it led.

“So that is why I’ve brought you
here, Cassima.”

“Because you like the way I look?
That’s it?”

“No, of course not,” said Mordack,
pausing for effect. Suddenly he dropped to one knee before Cassima and extended
a hand (the one that wasn’t on his wand). “I have brought you here so I can wed
you. Will you marry me, o sweet princess of the Isles?”

It was a long time before Cassima
realized what Mordack had asked her. A dozen comebacks flashed through her
mind, but none reached her lips. All that she actually said was:

“What?”

“I asked you to marry me, young Cassima. That’s all
I’m asking.”

You must be insane. You drag me from my family and
my homeland to this primordial rock in the ocean, far away from any human life
and ask me to be your wife? You’re worse than Alhazred. You’re worse than that
man who decided to slaughter every bride he took the day after he married,
until…

Until she came.
She-hera…Shahara…However you pronounce it, Cassima thought. She was the
only one who stood up to him. That’s what I’ll do. I’m not giving my life to
this emaciated pig.

“No.”

“What did you say, my dear?”

“No. I would never marry you, even if my life
depended on it. You’re selfish and unscrupulous. No woman in the world would
make a choice like that, and I won’t either.”

Mordack’s face seemed to whittle itself into a
twisted, evil, narrow-eyed grimace that drilled itself into Cassima’s mind as
he tightened the grip on his wand until there was a sound of splintering wood.
She feared that her opinion that death would be better than marriage to him was
going to suddenly come true. If that is the case, Cassima said to
herself, I’m not going to go down pleading for forgiveness. A true hero
faces death without fear. Go ahead. Kill me now, if you think you can…

After several dragging seconds, Mordack did
something that Cassima would never forget. His face softened, he slid his wand
back into his pocket and looked at her with an expression of defeat.

“Very well,” he replied. “You are lucky that you are
so beautiful. Otherwise I would have killed you.”

I still think that brains are better than beauty,
Cassima thought, still shaking in her terror.

“But I still give you the opportunity to marry me.
After several years of doing what I have decided you should do, you may think
differently.”

Nothing could be worse than you. Nothing.
Absolutely nothing. Feeding dragons, assisting Charon in the Underworld, living
in a cell for eternity…

“From this moment on, you will serve as the scullery
maid for this castle. You will scrub the floors, clean the tables, prepare the
meals and look after the beasts…”

“What?!?” Cassima shrieked, much louder than she had
when she first realized Alhazred was a traitor. “A scullery maid? Me?? In this
decrepit monstrosity of a castle on this barren island in the middle of…Wait.
Did you say ‘beasts’?”

“Of course. You don’t think my only protection is a pair
of stone snakes and an incomplete path, do you? I have several beasts within
the castle walls that capture any intruders who should happen to…”

A loud rumbling cut Mordack off. The walls and floor
began to shake, and presently a huge monster came galloping through the door
near the end of the hall. Its head resembled an antelope’s, with sweeping horns
and a long, narrow snout, but its eyes were red and a wild mane of hair went
down the ridge of its back. Its front feet were cloven, but gargantuan in size,
the hooves almost as large as shields, with spindly legs coming out of a fat,
scaly body. Its hind feet were as different as they could be, instead of
hooves, the creature had thick, reptilian claws that dug into the stone floor
as it ran, its scorpion-like tail whipping around like a cat-o’-nine-tails.

As it neared, Mordack calmly raised his hand and the
beast stopped, dropped back on its enormous back legs and sat still as a
statue, waiting for what its master had to say.

“Scalawag! I told you to never, ever stampede
through the castle like that again! You know what I do to creatures who disobey
me!”

The beast bowed guiltily and lowered its slender
head until it rested on its front hooves.

“This is the Princess Cassima,” said Mordack,
gesturing to Cassima. “You and your fellows will not hurt her in any way unless
she does something she isn’t told.”

Cassima eyed Mordack suspiciously and was about to
say something, but the presence of the huge creature directly in front of her
silenced her completely.

“Now, Cassima,” continued Mordack, “Your first task
will be scrubbing the scullery floor, through the door farthest from us and to
the left. It has not been cleaned in years. From there, you will go on to polishing
the statues in the hall to your left, cleaning the dining table and fixing my
dinner.”

“What?” shouted Cassima. “All this?In
my dressing gown?!?”

“No, you frivolous girl! Like I said, in the
castle! Trying to humor me will not make your task any easier. Now move!!”

Mordack gave Cassima a hard shove in her back,
sending her sprawling across the hard, stone floor and onto her knees. Lifting
herself up slowly and wincing in pain, she could hear Mordack speaking behind
her in a dragging, admonishing drawl:

Out of the corner of her eye, Cassima could see the
wizard’s hand going for his wand again, and she was about to dodge the blast of
light that she expected to spurt out of the business-end of the long, slender
rod, but instead of an electrical surge hitting her in the back, there was a
sharp crack and a singeing flame of pain that sent her sprawling again. Mordack
hadn’t used the wand as a wand. Instead he had used it as a whip or a
schoolmaster’s cane, and with a very similar infliction on Cassima as she
limped towards the back of the room, clutching the place where the wand had hit
her.

Tired of being a target for Mordack and his deformed
beast, Cassima stomped down the length of the hall and through the hallway to
the left of the dining table. From there, she walked through a narrow corridor
decorated with more of the ghoulish sculptures and decorations, as well as a
devilish pipe organ against the right wall, and into a cobwebby kitchen, with a
high, vaulted ceiling, a dead fireplace with coals that looked centuries old rotting
in the hearth, pots and pans cluttering a nearby counter and a decaying, wooden
table in the center of the room. A rusty bucket filled with brackish water
stood near one of the legs, beckoning Cassima to start working, along with a
dirty cloth hanging over the rim.

Sighing, Cassima knelt down beside the bucket, her
knees still raw and bleeding from Mordack’s first push, and her back still
stinging from his second blow. Grimacing in distaste, she picked up the
moth-eaten cloth and dipped it into the gray water, using the same method she
had seen the servants of her own castle use. Squeezing most of the liquid out,
Cassima then slapped the cloth down on the floor and began rubbing the stones
with a circular motion. A few minutes of this revealed a floor that was barely
distinguishable from the dirty floor. Sighing again, Cassima dipped the cloth
in the bucket again and crawled over to another unclean spot.

As she scrubbed the scullery floor and silently
lamented over her already ruined nightgown, a soft grunt over her shoulder
caught her attention. It was the beast that had almost stampeded her and
Mordack upon their arrival, the one Mordack had called “Scalawag.” A very
unflattering name, but still, it seemed to fit. He had somehow crept in behind
her without making a sound. In spite of the clamor he made when he first
appeared, Scalawag was apparently able of moving silently on his big, flat
feet. He was peering at her with immense curiosity, his antelope’s head with
its big, dewy eyes seeming remarkably innocent, in spite of the scorpion’s tail
dangling over his back.

As Cassima looked into his eyes, she realized for
the first time that her own eyes were stinging. The coldness of the castle must
have caused her to forget her emotions, but now the site of the naïve,
emotionless beast somehow made her aware of what she was feeling inside.

“I’m crying, aren’t I?” she asked Scalawag, her
voice choked up with her sudden grief. Though he made no verbal reply, Cassima
swore that Scalawag actually nodded.

Chapter 8:

After several hours of toil that day, as the sun was
setting in the west and the shadows became long and red within the castle
walls, Cassima was finally reaching the end of her work as she put the last
finishing touches on Mordack’s dinner, a large, pale fish that had been sitting
beside the fireplace.

After several hours beforehand, Cassima had finally
gotten the fire burning (which was difficult considering the greenness of the
wood supplied), skewered the fish on the fireplace poker and held it over the
flames. Scalawag proved to be remarkably helpful to Cassima, showing her how to
cook the fish and which herbs to season it with, and she assumed that he had
been a cook for Mordack before but had been excused because of his awkward
handling skills. Perhaps another beast, a breed with actual hands and digits
prepared the food before Cassima became a scullery girl.

After the fish was ready, Cassima washed off one of
the crusty plates and a set of silverware and placed the steaming food on the
plate. After a brief pondering of what Mordack would want to drink, Scalawag
again came to her rescue and pointed out a stash of old wine bottles beneath
one of the cupboards in the other half of the kitchen. An old, oak door at the
back of the kitchen interested her immensely, but the wizard’s tight schedule
wouldn’t let her venture any further.

Her day had been filled with rushing back and forth,
trying to find the rooms that Mordack had specified in his instructions. When
she took too long to start her next task after completing another, Mordack
would suddenly appear in a cloud of smoke and bellow at her like a crazed
Minotaur, asking why she wasn’t working and how she was supposed to follow
orders until Cassima could get a word in edgewise and explain that she didn’t
know where the room her next chore entailed was. Mordack would then give her a
brief description of the room and vanish to an unknown place.

At first this confused Cassima, for from what she
had heard Alhazred say, Mordack couldn’t teleport, but then she remembered
Mordack explaining that he could not teleport with more than one person, but he
could by himself. His reappearances were quite less puzzling after that was
cleared up.

Cassima’s mind had become a labyrinth of maps,
directions running through her memory like flying ribbons, replaying every
direction to each room in the castle, struggling to hold on to them…from the
main hall, the corridor goes to the left, up the stairs is the observatory,
left from there is Mordack’s room, try not to go in there often, down from
there is his library, don’t go in there either, right from the observatory is
the laboratory, go there only to clean, starting from the main hall again, the
second door to the left goes past the organ, into the kitchen, the cellar I guess
it is, and that door…

“Cassimaaaaaaaaa!” bellowed Mordack’s voice,
from the dining room. His usual dull “explosion” that occurred whenever he
appeared in the teleportation fashion hadn’t happened, so instead he must have walked
down the stairs from his room…or his lab, wherever he was…

“I’m coming!” yelled Cassima angrily, pouring the
wine from one of them more ancient bottles into a rough, glass goblet. The
goblet reminded her of something that had happened at her home a few days
ago…something that had to do with the bandage on her right index finger…But the
shock of the events that had taken place in the last few hours had wiped almost
all her memories of her dear home from her mind. If only she could remember,
though…

Snatching a blotchy, wool napkin from a shelf,
Cassima gathered up the fork, knife, goblet and plate in her two hands and
carried it all through the corridor with the morbid organ with the stone head
that seemed to follow her wherever she went (with Scalawag quietly clumping
behind her), and into the dining hall. Mordack sat at the head of the table,
drumming his brown hands on the wood, which was noticeably cleaner, thanks to
Cassima’s scrubbing and polishing. Cassima set the dish before Mordack, placing
the utensils, napkin and drink in the proper places her mother had indicated to
her many years ago, insisting that it was an essential thing to know as a
woman, then Cassima stepped back, awaiting whatever task Mordack was going to
assign her next.

Far from giving her orders, Mordack instantly became
engrossed with his food, examining it thoroughly from every angle and sniffing
it cautiously, as if he was concerned that it was poisoned.

“Not bad for a first attempt, princess,” said
Mordack flatly. “None of my beasts have ever cooked this well.” At these words,
Scalawag sulked away from Cassima and slouched down in a corner. “You may sit
down if you want,” he offered.

Reluctantly, Cassima sat down in the chair at the
opposite end of the table, as far away from the wizard as she could. Though
Mordack examined her several times through the course of his meal, Cassima
never so much as made eye contact with him. Instead she studied the ragged
front of her nightgown, which looked just like something a scullery girl would
wear. The worn away part revealed a more than discreet view of her legs, making
Cassima feel extremely insecure, even when her legs were entirely hidden from
Mordack’s sight. Who knows, maybe he could see through solid wood…

“I’m sure this day has been a bit much for you and
your royal weaknesses,” said Mordack in the same, indifferent voice.

Shut up, you, said Cassima to herself, hoping
that Mordack couldn’t hear her. Mordack looked at her with an expression giving
her the idea that that he had, but his features then relaxed as he threw a fish
bone over his shoulder, where it bounced across the floor for a short distance.
Scalawag pricked up his ears, spotted the bone and pounced on it like a cat,
gnawing on it as if it was the only food he had eaten in days. From the looks
of it, it probably was.

“I’m also sure,” continued Mordack, “That you would
not appreciate doing these chores all day tomorrow.”

Cassima did not raise her head to look at him.

“Or the next few weeks…”

Still, Mordack got nothing but silence from the
other end of the table.

“Months…”

Silence.

“Years…”

Finally Cassima looked at him, her narrow emerald
eyes black in the shadow of her tangled hair.

“There is an alternative to this, of course,
princess,” said Mordack lightly.

“Very well,” said Mordack, his hand reaching towards
his wand. Cassima, seeing it coming, sprang out of her chair and towards the
door to the kitchen. “You will start work at sunup tomorrow. I will give you
your instructions then.”

“What am I going to eat?” shouted Cassima. “I can’t
work without food!”

“Find something in the kitchen,” growled Mordack,
putting his wand away. “A few scraps of bread or some dry beans. I always keep
a good supply of food in there.”

“But you don’t cook it yourself!”

“”I have more important things to do, girl! That’s
what you are for!”

“Where am I going to sleep tonight?” asked Cassima,
since they were both in a fairly open question-and-answer state. “I haven’t
seen any spare bedrooms anywhere!”

“Sleep on the floor, silly princess!” snapped Mordack,
as if Cassima slept that way every day of her life.

“What??” yelled Cassima, for the fourth time
that day. “On the floor?”

“You’ve got a nice echo there,” remarked Mordack.
“And yes, that’s what I said, on the floor. You can pile some of the potato
sacks in a corner, make a little bed for yourself. Just don’t snooze the day
away! Now get out of my sight!”

As Cassima turned away, Mordack drained the wine out
of his goblet and threw it at her as she ran for the door. An explosion of
glass hit the floor near Cassima’s foot, some of the slivers hitting her in the
heel. She ran all the way back to the kitchen, where she slumped to the floor
in a corner of the room, crying softly.

When she finally became conscious of the pieces of
glass stuck in her heel and the blood oozing from them, she slowly pulled them
out on by one, wincing in pain with each extraction.

Feeling very much like the Greek hero Achilles,
Cassima limped over to one of the cupboards and opened it, finding a stale loaf
of bread within. Forcing herself to eat half of the bland confection over
several minutes, Cassima shoved what was left of the loaf back in the cupboard,
then walked across the room and found a pile of rotting sacks in one of the
corners and pulled them over to her own corner until she had achieved a nice,
thick layer, then lay down upon the sacks, still crying as she struggled to
sleep, trying not to think of her mother, who was probably weeping just like
she was.

Chapter 9:

Cassima’s sleep on the hard, stone floor was a restless
one, which was normal for someone who had slept in a canopied bed all her life.
When she finally succumbed to her tiredness after many hours of tossing and
turning, it seemed only a few minutes more before Mordack was shaking her
awake.

“Lazy little minx! The sun has already risen and I
ordered you to be up no later than sunrise!”

Cassima squinted through her sticky eyes at the
furrowed, dark forehead and even darker eyes that were glaring at her.

“What?”

“If you’re going to be my scullery girl, you must
learn to follow orders! Now up!”

A sudden jolt from Mordack’s wand made Cassima
suddenly stand up rigidly, as if she were tied against a stake. Her mind,
though still exhausted, now felt like it was in the grasp of an iron fist.

“That’s better,” said Mordack in satisfaction. “Now
for your chores: You will start off fixing my breakfast and sweeping the floor
in my laboratory. Then I want you to organize the cupboards in the kitchen and
polish the metal parts of the machine on the upper story of the lab.”

“Mmm,” said Cassima dully, unable to comprehend what
was going on in her half-conscious state. Mordack solemnly nodded and vanished.
Cassima’s rigid transfixion seemed to vanish, and she fell to the floor like a
dropped marionette. Slowly riding to her feet again, she began groping around
in the cupboards of the kitchen, searching for something suitable for
breakfast.

After several minutes, Cassima managed to cook up a
mediocre pot of porridge, leaving just enough for herself. Mordack ate this
without comment, ordering Cassima to do the rest of his previous chores.
Cassima’s weary body was barely able to start, let alone complete the chore of
sweeping the entire laboratory with the bristly, stiff bush of a broom. More
than once she found herself falling asleep with her arm resting on the broom’s
handle. The first time this happened, she woke herself up, but the second time,
she was awakened by Mordack’s roaring voice, yelling at her to wake up and get
back to work.

The rest of the day was all an endless blur of
falling asleep, trying to stay awake, getting admonished by the wizard and
moving on to the next chore. Then came dinner. This time it was a roast, but
where it came from Cassima had no idea. The fish she had prepared the night
before surely came from the waters surrounding the island (if indeed fish could
survive that mess), but where would a roast come from?

This question was still burning in Cassima’s mind as
she slowly carried the steaming piece of meat to the dining table, where
Mordack waited impatiently. As she set the food before him, she gently asked
the wizard:

“Mordack? Where do you get this and all the other
food on this island? I can understand the fish’s origin, but what about the
vegetables and meat that I’ve seen in the kitchen?”

After chomping through several bites of beef without
reply, Mordack grinned slightly and said:

“Don’t you know? You’ve known me long enough to make
a good assumption, no?”

“Of course,” Mordack said. “You know that the
mainland of Serenia has a small town near the mountain range? There’s enough for
me to get by on. I simply spy on one of their humble abodes through my crystal
ball…”

Crystal ball? Cassima thought excitedly. This
awful wizard has something as amazing as a crystal ball??

“…And then I just transport it here as quickly as
that. No one knows where I live, so I am perfectly safe, with no alibis
necessary to support me.”

You keep speaking using the singular pronouns,
thought Cassima. Are you forgetting that I’m here now?

“And again, I ask you…will you marry me so that I
will no longer remain the lonesome vagabond that I am? I could fashion us a
beautiful island paradise in the middle of the sea, where the gardens are
always in bloom and we have servants to tend to our every need, and you never
have to wear those filthy rags again!”

These “rags” were my silk nightclothes,
thought Cassima angrily. And you wouldn’t do something like that if your
alternative would be marrying a Cyclops.

“No,” said Cassima. “I told you twice, and I’ll tell
you again. My answer will always be no.”

“All right,” said Mordack after a brief pause. “Get
out of here, scullery girl, and don’t let me see your dirty face until
morning.”

Gladly, thought Cassima as she ran away from
the table, through the corridor and into the kitchen, where she gratefully lay
down on her bed of sacks, where she was asleep within minutes.

The next several weeks turned out to be one endless
stream of work for Cassima. Every day Mordack would shake her awake (except for
the rare occasions when she woke up on her own), give Cassima her orders, breakfast
always preceding the rest of the chores, then fix the wizard his meal, to the
room of the first task, repeat for the next, the next and the next, get scolded
by the wizard for dallying, work a bit quicker, try not to fall asleep, get
confronted by the wizard again to tell Cassima what to do next, do what he
said, then the next chore, then dinner, a few scraps for her, and to bed.

Every hour Cassima secretly mourned the loss of her
home and family, everything she had taken for granted, now gone forever. All
because of that vizier Alhazred. If only she could get off the island and find
a way back home, she could tell her parents everything, and Alhazred would be
doing work lower than what Cassima was doing now. But there was no way off the
island, and Mordack’s rambling stories of how he had battled sea serpents in
his attempt to create the island were no consolation. These facts made Cassima
grieve even more, but with Mordack’s non-stop chores hitting her at every hour
of every day, there seemed to be no time even for grief.

Her ruined nightgown soon became unsuitable for
wearing, so several nights before she got rid of it completely, Cassima
scavenged the basement for a needle and thread, finally finding a nice supply
of the latter in a large rat’s nest behind a large barrel. The needle she never
found, instead she found a good substitute for one: a large fishhook on one of
the many dirty, stone windowsills, obviously for the beasts Mordack kept that
were capable of handling a hook and a line to catch the fish that strayed out
into the stagnant waters surrounding the isle.

Using the fishhook and the coarse thread, Cassima
sewed some of the potato sacks together with the limited needlepoint skills her
mother had taught her, making an uncomfortable, but sturdy dress, tied about
the waist with a frayed rope belt, one that she assumed made her look just like
one of the captive princesses in her fairy tales. Again, she vaguely remembered
the words to a strange poem from her distant past:

Do not fear the unsheathed knife

Your dreams and thoughts become your life

Sighing heavily in realization of the strange irony,
Cassima threw what was left of her silk nightgown out one of the highest
windows, not bothering to watch it flutter down like a dying bird, falling to
the sharp rocks below. She continued to work in her new attire, ignoring
Mordack’s snide remarks about her appearance, and still refusing his nightly
request to marry him, no matter how furious he became.

Her body became dirty and coarse, and she had no
opportunity to bathe, not even in the salty seawater. Her bare feet became so
callused that using pumice on them would do no good – her feet had achieved the
very texture of pumice, matching her hardened mind and fading memories as the
endless stream of nearly identical days marched by.

One day, however, when black clouds were releasing
torrents of rain down upon the castle (the castle seeming to be the only place
the rain was coming to), Mordack was busy in his laboratory, stoking the fire
in the large, rectangular furnace in order to keep it alight, a task that he
insisted was accomplished purely with a trained, magic-oriented mind, though
Cassima could not see why.

It was obvious that he was going to spend most of
the day brooding over his fire, so Cassima decided to take advantage of this.
Since there still were no obvious means of escape she could uncover, she
decided to explore the one thing that hadn’t left her mind from the first day
she arrived: the wooden door in the back of the kitchen.

Quietly, using the same skills she had developed
sneaking out of her room in the castle of the Green Isles at night to visit the
gardens, Cassima crept down the length of the kitchen and lifted the heavy
brass ring on the door. It wasn’t locked. Giving the ring a firm pull, she
slowly drew the door open, praying that it wouldn’t creak or make any revealing
noise, no matter how small. Mordack, it seemed, could hear anything she did.

When the opening between the door and the wall was
wide enough, Cassima quickly slipped through and found herself in the tenebrous
space on the other side of the door. After a few minutes, her eyes became used
to the pressing darkness and strained to identify the strange room she was in.
When her efforts yielded no real result, she walked forward a few steps, to see
how far the corridor was. After a few paces, the wall suddenly made a sharp
turn and the corridor made a 90-degree turn to the left. Cassima walked in the
direction the hall pointed her until another wall rose up in front of her. This
time the hall forked, one path leading to the right, and one to the left.

Cassima then realized just what she had stepped
into. It was the same thing Theseus had walked into on his quest to find the
Minotaur.

It was a labyrinth.

Chapter 10:

In her sudden excitement, Cassima was about to dart
into the dank passages and see what there was to explore, her imagination
running wild with possibilities: a subterranean tunnel to the Green Isles, a
magic portal to Serenia, a way to summon help, a trove of treasure with a
potion that could do away with Mordack…

But her sensibility stopped her from going more than
two steps down the right fork. In a maze like this she could surely get lost,
and who knows what beasts could be lurking in the shadows, ready to punish her
as Mordack bade them to do if she disobeyed…and this maze was surely not a
place that he would allow her to wander through…

Do what Theseus did, thought Cassima. Of
course. She skipped back to the door and pried it open carefully. It was
fortunate that she left it partially open, for when she tried the handle, it
wouldn’t budge. It must be stuck, thought Cassima. On one of the shelves
in the kitchen, under a pile of dried squashes were the few yards of thick
thread left over from sewing her dress. Gathering up the small bundle, Cassima
walked out the door again and tied the end of the string to the handle of the
door.

Letting the thread trail behind her on the floor,
she gently gripped the ball of thread in her hand and continued down the corridor.
At the first junction, she turned right and continued down until she came to
the next junction. Here she turned left, then right again. It didn’t really
matter which way she went, because the thread would always guide her back to
her starting point. The only real danger seemed to be getting caught by Mordack
or by one of his beasts, which, even though she had seen only one, Cassima
assumed there were more somewhere in the castle, and this labyrinth seemed to
be an ideal place for them to lurk.

Maybe I should’ve brought a dagger, like Theseus
also did, she thought. But what in this castle is even close to a
dagger? One of those dull kitchen knives? Any beasts that caught me with
something like that’d probably laugh themselves senseless.

As if alerted by her thoughts, a sudden scuffling
made by a rat-sized animal came from ahead of her. Cassima stopped, listening
tenaciously until the scuffling died away. Sighing quietly in relief, Cassima
continued through the maze.

She was still suspicious as to what she would find,
or indeed could. The walls of the maze were thick and plain, with no sign of
there being a secret door hidden in any of them. The floor and ceiling were of
equal blandness, not made of stone and mortar, like the rest of the castle, but
instead of a dark gray, solid substance, similar to the stucco of her former
home, but with a touch much like stone, rough and cold as ice.

The ball of thread in Cassima’s hand was dwindling
rapidly, and she was still getting nowhere. She was ready to turn around and
try another path, when suddenly a low, sonorous sound echoed through the maze.
It was difficult to place what the sound was, but it seemed strangely
unthreatening. Again, the short, abrupt noise resounded down the hall she was
standing in.

From where Cassima stood, it seemed to be coming
from around the corner several feet ahead of her and to her left. She was not
afraid of the sound, or even who or what the sound could be coming from, but
she was still very apprehensive. But then…she remembered the lines of a poem
from her past. The one about the hero…and how Ulrica had said the princess was
like her. Heroes don’t turn back because of a frightening noise. They go on
and see just what it is.

With a sense of strength, Cassima cautiously walked
down the corridor and turned the corner. The hall turned again, then once more,
spiraling to what turned out to be a dead end…but this dead end was occupied.

Squatting in the corner of the maze was a huge,
broad beast. His tiny red eyes, peering out of a head tiny in proportion to the
rest of his body, shining like his large, sharp teeth, watched Cassima closely.
His feet were large and flat, resembling those of an elephant or a rhinoceros.
The only visible hair he had sprouted out of the top of his head, a ratty brown
color, was bound with a metal hairpin, making his appearance altogether a
little ridiculous.

Cassima wasn’t sure how to react. The beast seemed
capable of capturing her immediately and bringing her to Mordack, who could,
for all she knew, be over with his fire-stoking and now looking for her. But in
spite of his fierce features, the beast looked almost benign, and in a way
playful…but again, one can’t judge people that way…or beasts.

Cassima stepped forward shakily and reached out to
touch the beast’s topknot. The beast looked temporarily befuddled, then
suddenly jumped into the air about a foot and came down with a sickening thud,
nearly flattening Cassima’s toes. She stepped back in terror, breathing much
faster than she had before when she first saw the creature, which appeared just
as mellow as he had before, but this time he bore a hint of malice.

“Sorry,” said Cassima timidly, not knowing what else
to say.

“Dink,” replied the creature. The sound his
voice was the same noise that Cassima had heard twice in the corridor, though
the reason he made that sound she didn’t know. But he seemed capable of speech,
unlike Scalawag, and was also friendly, unlike Mordack, who thought that a good
attitude was something that was wasted on his slaves.

“I hope I didn’t startle you,” whispered Cassima,
trying to at least get their friendship started on a good note.

“Dink,” said the beast again.

“Does Mordack keep you down here?”

“Dink.”

“Well, Scalawag is allowed to roam the castle, I
thought you would too.”

“Dink.”

“I guess you don’t know me…uh…beast…”

“Dink.”

“My name is Princess Cassima. From the Land of the
Green Isles. Mordack kidnapped me and brought me here.”

“Dink…Dink…Dink.”

“Is that all you’re going to say to me?” Cassima
asked, the beast’s repetitive speech both irritating and amusing her.

“Dink.”

“Well…you’re one of the only friendly creatures on
this island. I hope I can see you again…uh…er…”

“Dink.”

“Yes, Dink.”

Cassima left Dink in his corner, since he had no inclination
of going with her. Following her thread back to one of the junctions where she
had originally gone to the left, Cassima decided to head right this time. As
she was walking through the twisting corridors and abrupt corners, a loud
scuffling noise sounded again. It was coming from behind her this time. She
whirled around quickly and spotted the sound’s source immediately: a small,
brightly colored creature scurrying across one of the walls of the labyrinth.

It looked like a four-legged spider, but it seemed
more mammalian than arachnid. It was a brilliant chartreuse, the first color
that Cassima had seen in the dull castle she was standing in. As it drew nearer
to her, the animal suddenly stopped and peered at her curiously, curiously in
that it had no visible head or eyes.

After examining the stranger thoroughly, the
creature rapidly crawled down the wall, turned a corner and vanished, the noise
gradually fading with it. Shrugging her shoulders, Cassima continued her way
down the corridor, wondering if she would meet another of the odd organisms,
which also seemed to be harmless, and almost cute in their appearance.

After a few more minutes, Cassima heard yet another
noise, not dull and resounding like Dink’s monosyllabic voice, and not swift
and scuttling like the sound of the wall-crawling creature. This was a loud,
thundering sound of hoof-beats on stone. It was not as thunderous as
Scalawag’s, but much more like the hooves of a goat or a horse, not like the
plate-sized feet Scalawag had.

The beats grew louder and louder until the floor
under Cassima’s feet began vibrating, then a strange, large, blue beast rounded
a corner in front of her and stopped inches from the tips of her toes. This
beast was definitely more colorful than Dink or Scalawag, and more bizarre
still. Cassima could recognize no familiar animal traits in the creature’s
appearance.

What it seemed to be was a hairless, slim, blue
monstrosity with strange, curling horns wrapped around its head like a ram. Its
legs were coiled around themselves as well, making it run and walk bowlegged.
From the side, with the exception of the color, it resembled a human ear more
than anything else. The arms of the beast were actually quite human, with
thick, knobby fingers that looked capable of a good grip.

But like Dink, this creature did not look at all
like it was eager to capture Cassima at all. It also appeared very friendly.
Using the same approach she had with Dink, Cassima attempted to start a
conversation with the beast.

“Hello. My name is Cassima. Princess Cassima. Of the
Green Isles?”

The beast regarded her out of its beady, black eyes
but made no vocal response.

“Do you have a name?”

The beast shook its head slowly. Apparently it
understood her quite clearly. Not only that, but it could communicate without a
voice. Obviously this was something Mordack had taught it.

“I see. Mordack keeps you down here?”

The beast shook its head again.

“You can go anywhere on this island?”

The beast nodded.

“But not off it?”

The beast shook its head.

“There’s no way off this island?”

Another headshake, but this time a more reluctant
one.

“No way that you know of, you mean?”

An exuberant nod. After a short pause, Cassima asked
the beast a question that she should have asked at the beginning of their
conversation:

“You don’t like Mordack, do you?”

An exaggerated headshake followed by a ferocious
gnashing of its goat-like teeth.

“You’re not alone, then.”

Suddenly, from above the maze came the worst possible
voice Cassima wished to hear in her predicament. The wizard’s voice, bellowing:

“Cassiiiimaaaaaaaa!”

Chapter 11:

“Oh no,” Cassima cried. “He’s going to
paralyze me with his wand if he finds me here! I’ve got to get back to the maze
door!”

The blue beast blinked in surprise and grew tense,
its back legs coiled like springs. Cassima turned and ran back through the
maze, following the thread and rapidly coiling it back up as she moved. It was
a few seconds before she realized that the beast was running behind her. She
spun around and looked it in the eyes, for a moment unaware of her trouble.

“You want to follow me?”

The beast nodded, but its eyes flicked up towards
the ceiling, noting that he knew what was going on.

Again, Cassima turned and raced through the
labyrinth of tunnels, turns and twists until she finally reached the door and
the true terror of her predicament finally hit her.

The door was closed. Either the wind blew it shut –
if there was any wind – or some other creature in this maze had accidentally
slammed it shut. Praying that the door had only been stuck when she tried it
from the inside, Cassima yanked on the handle with all her strength. The door
remained still. She tried the handle with both hands, but it was no use.

“It must be locked from this side!” she wailed in
despair and horror. “And I can’t pick locks! How can I get back into the
castle? He’ll skin me!”

The beast was eyeing her and the door in deep
contemplation, then the solution seemed to come to him. He gently grasped her
arm with his large paw-like hand and looked into her green eyes pleadingly, as
if asking for her trust.

The beast shrugged, then nodded. Before Cassima
could ask anything more, the creature pulled her to its side and faced the wall
to the left of the wooden door. Suddenly, there was a low humming sound and a
rectangular, black hole appeared in the wall, just the size and shape a door
would have. Gripping her arm more tightly, the beast then leapt through the
doorway, which sealed itself behind them, revealing nothing but darkness. In
the next minute, there was another hum and another door opened, this time
leading into the grand hall of the castle. Cassima had no idea how this could
be, since the labyrinth was beneath the castle, but very little was impossible
in this place.

Before Cassima had time to thank the creature, it
had disappeared through the door, which vanished at once. In the next instant,
Mordack poofed into the room, with one of his “darker” expressions plastered
across his face.

“Cassima! Where have you been? If you’ve been
sleeping on the job again, I’ll…”

“No! I haven’t been sleeping, Mordack!” Cassima
shouted, quickly stuffing her ball of thread into a pocket.

“I’ll accept your excuse for now. It’s time for you
to sweep the kitchen. It’s still as filthy as ever.”

“I just cleaned it two days ago!”

“I have noticed no difference. Now move!”

With her head held high, Cassima stomped back to the
kitchen to do what Mordack ordered. As she found the bristly broom and began
the tedious task of sweeping the floor, she curiously eyed the basement door,
wondering where the strange blue creature was and whether she would get a
chance to thank him, or even explore the maze some more…

He didn’t even have a name…

As the months dragged on, Mordack grew increasingly
more and more vicious as Cassima continued to refuse his questions to marry
her. The time she spent working and the time she spent sleeping began to grow
imbalanced, the former gaining the upper hand. The upside to this was that she
was free to wander the castle at night, while Mordack snored away in his
over-decorated, grotesque bedchamber.

The first place Cassima decided to investigate on
one of her sleepless nights was the library. Though she wasn’t as desperate as
a person in danger of losing her life, her need to get off the island was
growing with her master’s malicious temper. Since the beast in the maze had
indicated there was no ordinary way to escape the castle, perhaps the way out
was by magic, and being the captive of an amateur wizard, there was no way
Cassima wasn’t going to find anything on magic in his library.

The library of the castle was a high-ceilinged
chamber, with iron stools and strange implements scattered everywhere. The
table was scattered with scrolls and papers, which Cassima decided not to move,
in case Mordack noticed. The shelves on all sides of the room were crammed with
books, all of them ancient and falling apart. Cassima started with the shelf to
the right of the desk, with no particular goal in mind. Anything that looked
interesting (and was written in a familiar language) she would read.

Perhaps I could find a spell that could turn me
into a bird, Cassima pondered. But then how would I become human again
once I reached the isles? Not only that, but how would I find my way…oh well.
There has to be a way off this rock…

During the hours that she searched the book-packed
room, in the few scraps of parchment that were written in her language, she
found nothing that would aid in her escape. Spells to prepare food, to charm
animals (that must have been Mordack’s spell when he tamed his beasts), create
rain and drought…none were in the least bit helpful. Disappointed and aware
that her time in the library was limited, Cassima turned to leave, but then her
eye fell upon something different, resting on the large desk at the back wall
of the room. It was the only thing that truly seemed familiar to her in the
library: a tiny, detailed model of a sailboat. She had never seen a real one,
but the pictures from her storybooks were real enough. For some reason, she was
intrigued by the craftsmanship of the little craft, and briefly pondered the
possibility of taking it with her and hiding it somewhere…but Mordack would
notice it, for sure. Much too risky.

Cassima left the library and entered Mordack’s
bedroom. The wizard was sprawled out on his bed, snoring thunderously. His
wand, glowing softly, lay on a bedside table. For a moment, Cassima was tempted
to snatch it from the table and put some unmentionable curse on him, but once
again, the voice of reason spoke to her. She knew no spells, and not only that
but the wand might not work for her. They are crafted specially for
certain magic-users, Cassima said to herself, and I’m not one. But I
know I can try…but no…not now.

Cassima left the room and descended the stairs. From
the foot of the stairs, she walked down the length of the main hall and turned
left, going past the organ and into the kitchen. From there, she picked up the
ball of thread she had hidden under the pile of squashes after Mordack had
confronted her months before, and headed to the one place she had been
determined to see more than any other place in the castle: the maze.

Opening the heavy door and angrily wondering why it
couldn’t be opened from the other side, Cassima retrieved a hard squash from
one of the counters and placed it between the door and the wall, so that she
couldn’t be locked in again. Then she tied her thread to the handle of the door
and once again began her journey through the maze.

She still had a vague mental map of her previous
visit, and decided to test her memories by going down the same path she had
gone to meet Dink. The heavy creature was still there, in his corner, still
repeating that silly word over and over. Again, Cassima laughed just to hear
him, which gave her a spark of confidence.

Backtracking to the beginning of the maze, Cassima
tried a new route, this time bearing entirely left whenever possible. Several
minutes of this lead her to an inevitable dead end…but this was different
somehow. The wall was composed of large, rectangular stones, not the smooth
rock of the rest of the labyrinth walls. Not only that, but the mortar between
some of the stones was old and crumbling, giving Cassima the impression that
some of them were loose. She knelt on her bare, dirty knees and tried pushing
on some of the bricks. To her astonishment, one gave way. It fell into whatever
room was behind the wall, leaving a space just wide enough for Cassima to slip
through on her stomach.

The room was dark and a stagnant smell was in the
air. A light split into several identical, rectangular slits shone down from
the ceiling. It was a large grate, too high to reach, even standing on the
loose stone. As Cassima’s eyes grew used to the darkness, the room she was in
slowly revealed what it was. A prison cell. A dank, moldy, classic dungeon
cell. Cassima had seen each of the three dungeon cells in the basement of her
castle home, but they were well kept. This was a nightmare of reality.
Slimy fungi covered the dirt floor, which was already soggy enough. Putrid
water dripped from the grate, which gave no indication as to where it was
located in relation to the level above the cell.

Then something clicked inside Cassima’s head. All
these months she had wondered what happened to any intruders that managed to
get by Mordack’s treacherous jagged reefs surrounding the island, the stone
snakes and the great gap in the path. They were taken here. But how? Of
course. The blue beast could step into one room and into another. He had
demonstrated that very well. It would be a simple matter to snatch up whatever
person was inside the castle, open one of those “doors”…then step through…and
dump him in here…

A slight skittering caught Cassima off guard. At
first she thought it was another of the little creatures that crawled the
labyrinth walls, but it was only a large, black rat that scurried across the
floor and into a small hole in the left wall. Feeling slightly sorry for it,
considering how difficult it must be to survive in such a harsh environment,
Cassima decided to leave the dismal dungeon cell. She backed out through the
hole, dragging the stone with her, managing to wedge it into its space just
enough, enough so that Mordack wouldn’t notice, that is, if he ever came down
here at all.

Quickly, Cassima ran back through the maze, rolling
up her ball of string as she did. A few turns before she found the door again,
there was a clatter of hooves on stone, and the odd, blue beast turned a corner
and almost ran into her. Both of them stopped seconds before they collided,
Cassima breathing hard, the creature eyeing her inquisitively. Then she
remembered what she had been meaning to tell the creature since their meeting
several months before.

“I…I wanted to thank you for saving me from Mordack,
Beast.”

The beast nodded, and Cassima swore that it almost
grinned, showing the same goat’s teeth that it had when she asked him if he
hated his master. Combined with the curling blue horns, he looked more like a
big blue ram than anything.

“You told me that you don’t have a name,” continued
Cassima. “Would you like me to give you one?”

The beast nodded again, smiling delicately. It
has to be something simple. Something that has to do with the way he looks…or
at least…what he looks like…

“The first impression I got of you was a ram-like
creature,” said Cassima.

Again, the beast nodded.

“I thought I’d name you something that…well…went
with that word…perhaps something that…rhymed, perhaps?”

The next few weeks found Cassima feeling better
about herself. She now had three friends who weren’t on Mordack’s side, the
magic number in everything she read about, a secret place to visit that she was
positive the wizard had forgotten, and a time that she could use to find a
means of escape. But the memories of her home were coming back stronger, and at
times she felt lower than Atlantis.

The bandage on her finger had been fraying and
coming apart for ages now, and one day, peeling potatoes in the kitchen with
Scalawag monitoring her (under Mordack’s orders), she finally pulled it off,
revealing her shriveled finger with the tiny cut on the tip. Finally, after so
many days of doubt, she remembered how she had gotten it. The glass goblet
half-filled with water. Running her finger around it, the sweet, resounding
sound pouring from it, the voices of the sea nymphs of the Mediterranean Sea.
And then snagging her finger on a sharp edge…Ulrica binding it up, then telling
her how she was like that other woman…whose name Cassima couldn’t remember. And
by this time, she didn’t really want to anymore.

But she did want to hear the voice of the glass harp
again, like the way Jollo had first played it to her. Cassima filled one of the
glasses on the counter with some of the water that she assumed came from the
sea. This puzzled her, because even though it came from there, it was
drinkable. Her guess was that Mordack somehow extracted the salt from the water
with his magic, though she had never seen him do it. If so, it was probably the
only kitchen-related thing he ever did in the castle.

Dipping her finger in the sparkling liquid, Cassima
wound it around the edge of the glass, but no sound came. Wetting her finger
again, Cassima slowly and carefully rubbed the rim in a circular motion, going
clockwise, the same way that the shadows traveled around their objects every
day.

Finally, a clear, ethereal whine came from out of
the glass, filling the kitchen, and from Cassima stood, almost shaking some of
the dust from the ceiling. Scalawag snorted in surprise, looking almost as
Sing-Sing had when Jollo had first played the harp. She increased the rate of
the revolution of her finger, and the one, sonorous note grew louder and more
penetrating, until another voice shattered the music.

“Cassimaaaaa! Stop that harpy-voiced
cacophony! How can I concentrate with you making that ruckus!?!”

“All right!” snapped Cassima, slamming the
glass down on the table and splashing water into her face. Scalawag jumped into
the air and came down with a loud clump. Wiping the moisture off (as well as a
small smear of dirt) Cassima snarled and glanced up at the ceiling, where
Mordack’s voice was coming from.

“And when you finish preparing those potatoes, clean
the walls in the hall to your left!” Mordack roared.

Cassima grunted in response, not caring to let him
hear her answer. In spite of her weakness, she would not let him get the best
of her.

Later that afternoon, after Cassima had finished all
her chores that Mordack had assigned her, the wizard was taking a long siesta
in his room, his snores shaking the castle walls. Cassima was walking through
the halls and rooms, not knowing what to do. A trip to the library or the
laboratory would be too risky. Mordack did not sleep soundly during the day.
The labyrinth was also a no for the same reasons. Scalawag and Sam were nowhere
about, and Dink displayed no ability to depart from the maze. Not that he could
fit through the door, even.

Cassima was striding down the corridor that led from
the kitchen to the dining room, trying to think of something to do when her
eyes happened upon the gigantic organ against the left wall. The great stone
head above the organ that followed her every move leered at her as she
approached. There were two rows of keys…could be worse, but still more than the
mini-organ she had occasionally practiced on back home. But she hadn’t
practiced in years…she had only learned a few pieces, and even those weren’t
fully mastered, but…no one said she couldn’t practice here…

Smiling mischievously, Cassima positioned her hands
on the keys, ignoring the grimacing head above her. It would be more
convenient if I had a stool, she thought. Could be worse. Placing
her fingers in the positions for one of the first chords she had been taught
and pressing down on the cold, white keys, Cassima nearly flattened against the
opposite wall when the organ began to play a loud, thundering, ghoulish march
by itself. Quickly recovering and feeling a touch of irritation, Cassima slapped
her hands down on the first row of keys again and began playing the first thing
that came to mind: the national anthem of the Green Isles.

Indeed, she was very much out of practice, hitting
wrong notes occasionally and playing the wrong keys for the chords. Combined
with the creepy music that the organ itself was playing at the same time, it
was not a pleasant sound. At last, after several seconds of fighting to get the
upper hand, the organ stopped playing and the stone head growled and snarled in
silent rage, trying to scare Cassima away and stop the music. But she simply
ignored the face and kept on banging out the song of her homeland. She was
having a good time, and nothing was going to stop her.

Her skills were anything but satisfactory, but she
partially blamed Mordack for her lack of practice. To her, it was the best
adaptation of the song she had ever heard, and she swayed slightly on her feet,
tapping her callused toes to the beat. She had gotten halfway through the
second verse when a loud bellow cut her off:

“Cassimaaaaaaa!”

Cassima slammed her hands down, hitting a note so
sour that it made a lemon sound sweet.

Cassima gnashed her teeth, trying to think of something
smart to yell back, but nothing came to her. Then she realized the most obvious
thing that would irritate Mordack more. She began playing again, where she left
off, the notes rolling resoundingly (if it were played by a more skilled hand)
through the castle, filling Cassima’s ears. She smiled lightly and began
playing mezzo forte. The music now boomed through the place, bouncing
off the walls like rain.

“Cassima! Stop that God-forsaken noise before
I take drastic measures!!”

“I will not!” shouted Cassima, hitting several wrong
notes as she did so. After a brief struggle, she got back on track and
continued her symphony.

“Scalawag! Beasts!?! Any beast! Get her!!”

“Don’t you know? They haven’t been around
since you sacked off, Mordack!” yelled Cassima gleefully, purposely forgetting
to tell him where she knew they were, the labyrinth.

“Stop that, you little wench! You don’t know
what you’re digging for yourself!”

Who cares, I’ll always come out on the other side,
thought Cassima sassily, her hands sweeping across the keys as her rhythm began
to awaken from its long dormancy. Seconds before she reached the final notes of
the ballad, there was a huge puff of red smoke and Mordack appeared behind her,
wand in hand. Still she refused to stop playing until a sharp blast of light
from the wand struck her in the middle of her back. Her muscles froze and her
body grew rigid in a straight, standing position that would have received a
word of compliment from her mother. The music stopped, of course, but the
essence of it still hung in the air, leaving the ears of all living things in
the castle ringing.

“A very unwise move, princess,” said Mordack,
peering over her shoulder and looking her in the eyes, seeing as she couldn’t
turn her head. “I can’t give a minor punishment to you now. One of the beasts
will take you to a place where you will stay until it is time to prepare
supper. You are lucky, Cassima,” he said haughtily, turning away. “I usually
reserve this room for uninvited guests that come by here.”

Mordack snapped his fingers twice. Out of the corner
of her eye, Cassima saw Sam appear out of a black portal with the familiar
humming sound in the wall to the left of the organ. The wizard gestured to
Cassima, and Sam hobbled over and grabbed her around the waist.

“You will remain where you are until the beast comes
for you,” explained Mordack. “Not that you can escape, anyway. Let this
be a lesson to you for disobeying my words.”

Sam carried Cassima, still stiff as a plank, to the
wall. Another portal opened, and Sam stepped through with Cassima in his grasp.
Another brief hum, and they came out in a dark chamber, where Sam immediately
let Cassima go, sending her sprawling across the floor. The spell that bound
her was broken as soon as she hit the ground, yet she still rolled for a short
distance before she came to a halt. Sam vanished through the now familiar black
portal routine, leaving Cassima alone in the dark.

As her eyes adjusted to her surroundings, she almost
laughed upon discovering where she was. She was in the same dungeon that she
had stumbled across days earlier. She waited until she could at last see
clearly, then ran to one of the walls, hoping to find the loose stone that she
had found before. The first wall yielded no result. This made Cassima worried,
she gazed up at the ceiling, trying to remember how she entered. Could this be
a different cell?

Then she remembered: the bars in the grid above her
head were perpendicular to the door, not parallel. She tried the wall adjacent
to the one she was kneeling in front of. Still, no loose stone. What else
marked where she had entered?

The rat hole! Of course! It was left of the
entrance, not right, where her present position would have meant. Turning and running
to the opposite wall, Cassima quickly searched the wall and finally found what
she was looking for. The stone jutted out just a few centimeters, barely a
finger’s breadth. If she had pulled it back any farther when she first left the
cell, it would be impossible to escape now.

Gripping the edges with her long, tough nails,
Cassima heaved and pulled on the stone until it began moving. A few more
moments of yanking and it was out enough to use her hands. Finally it was free.
Cassima stepped aside to avoid squashing her foot as it came out and fell to
the swampy floor. Squeezing through the hole, Cassima stepped out into the
familiar, blank-walled labyrinth. She carefully pulled the stone back into
place, this time leaving it out just a little more than last time. You never
know, she told herself.

Without her trusty ball of thread, Cassima felt
afraid for the first time in the maze. She could easily get lost, and who knew
what booby traps or malevolent beasts could be lurking in the shadows. But her
proud heart pushed her on. The thread that had guided her had become almost an
extension of herself, her nerves, her veins, all branching from the simple
string, guiding her through the maze of passageways, sometimes reaching dead
ends, sometimes arriving back at the dungeon’s outer wall.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, Cassima found
the door to the kitchen. It was then that the truth hit her. The door was
locked from this side. Not only that, but Mordack would obviously do something
far worse than imprisonment if he caught Cassima out of the dungeon cell. But
why hadn’t he confronted her already? He knew of the cell, so why not the
labyrinth?

Then Cassima hypothesized that he, in fact, didn’t
know the location of either the labyrinth or the cell. He knew of their
existence, but he didn’t know just where they were. He left errands to either
of the two to beasts, which knew the castle far better than he did. If Mordack did
know of the cell and the maze, however, it could be that he either forgot their
location or cut himself off from them. Since they were surprisingly worse than
the rest of his “lovely” castle, he would obviously stay away from both. Not
only that, but since the only doorway to the maze was through a door in the
scullery, Mordack would most certainly prefer dancing with Dink than setting
foot in the kitchen, especially with a dirty scullery girl occupying it most of
the time.

Turning her back to the door disappointedly, Cassima
decided to see if she could make her way through the maze without the thread to
guide her. Unlike Theseus, she had no Minotaur to worry about, so she didn’t
have to fret about getting lost. Sam was always there to help her out. She
could trust him enough.

Her quest through the maze was rather uneventful,
with the exception of Dink, who she ran into at least three times. Scalawag
appeared a few minutes later, the first time Cassima had seen him in the maze,
and he clopped behind her as she made her way through the labyrinth, through
the twists and turns and tunnels. She secretly told herself to get the ball of
thread she had hidden in the kitchen and carry it with her in a pocket. She
wasn’t going to end up in a situation like this again without it.

Presently, she became aware that light was coming
down on her. Cassima glanced up and saw a metal grate in the ceiling, not
unlike the one she saw in the cell. However, this one was different. The bars
were enclosed in a broad metal frame, and there was a pair of hinges on one
side, indicating that it could be opened, and who knew what was beyond the
grate. But like so many things that she wanted in the castle, it was totally
out of reach. Even Scalawag, standing on his back feet and on the tips of his
large claws couldn’t reach it.

Even more crestfallen than before, Cassima slowly
trudged back to her cell, deciding to wait inside until Sam came to take her
back inside the castle.

Chapter 13:

“You have behaved most naughtily today, princess,”
said Mordack softly as he sawed away at his broiled chicken and glanced at
Cassima from the opposite table end.

As usual, Cassima said nothing in reply.

“You know that if you married me, you could do
whatever you desired and more. Not have to be punished at every opportunity.”

Silence.

“Mordack,” said Cassima after several seconds of
sickening silence. “You know what my answer is going to be as well as I
do. I know you aren’t going to change your entire lifestyle because some pretty
princess consented to spend the rest of her life with you. I’m never going to
say anything even hinting of a positive reply.”

Mordack jammed the blade of his knife into the
table, the tip nearly coming out the underside.

“Your uncooperative behavior has not changed much in
the time you have stayed here, Cassima. Perhaps I should come up with more
difficult tasks that take longer for you to accomplish…or maybe ones that you
can never accomplish…”

“You will!” shouted Mordack, pulling his
knife out of the tabletop and gripping it menacingly. “Five more years of this
and you will be crawling on your tender little knees to me, begging for me to
be your husband and to free you from your prison! But if you don’t, even after
all that I put you through, I just might decide to kill you instead. By the
gods!” he roared again, the tips of his fingers glowing with blood-like light.
“I’ve never in my life met a creature as difficult to tame as you, with the
exception of the cannibalistic lamia that the sorcerer Andrithus encountered in
the volume of magical history in my library!”

Funny, Cassima thought as she quickly rose
and fled from the table as Mordack continued his mad ranting. That’s just
where I’m planning to visit tonight.

As she planned hours before, Cassima stealthily
snuck into Mordack’s library, but not before taking the ball of thread she had
intended on getting hours before and placing it in her ragged skirt. Then she
once again tried to locate where she had left off last and continue her search
for a useful spell. Anything that would assist in getting her off the island or
summoning help. As before, the scrolls and volumes were written mostly in an
incomprehensible chicken-scratch language of hieroglyphics and symbols. The few
pictures that accompanied the writing did little to put what the whole thing
said into perspective.

Finally, Cassima pulled a hefty volume from one of
the shelves, one that she had been eying since her entry, but saving it until
she reached its position. As she gave a last heave and the book dropped to the
floor with a soft thud, she became aware that something was monitoring her. She
glanced behind her at the doorway. Scalawag wasn’t there, nor was Sam. The gaze
seemed to be coming from above the doorway.

As Cassima’s eyes slowly traveled up the bone-like
frames of the door, they met the glance of another, enormous, unblinking eye
positioned above it, a few feet below the ceiling. As usual, she was surprised,
but by now Cassima was so used to being monitored by some entity that the eye
that watched her so intently came as a very brief shock, in fact, she almost
sniffed in ignorance at it as she turned back to examine her book. Since the
eye had no visible mouth, it appeared quite unable to yell out an alarm that an
intruder was in Mordack’s library.

Cassima dusted off the unclean cover of the volume
and tried to read the gold lettering printed on the leather binding. Most of
the writing had flaked off or corroded in some way, enough so that the title
was beyond readability. She carefully opened the book, the cracked spine
creaking slightly as she turned to a random page which was thankfully written
in English, and began to read:

“Then did the intrepid Simpleton recite the words
“Sail, ship, sail,” and lo, the miniscule fragment of bark of a birch tree did expand
into an enormous vessel, hovering a hand’s breadth above the ground, capable of
flying betwixt the closest of mountain peaks and over the tallest of trees. The
young fool climbed within the flying wonder and thus did…”

Wait, thought Cassima. This is a fairy
tale. Like the kind my mother read to me when I was younger. In fact…I know
this one. The Fool and the Flying Ship! But…why would Mordack keep a book of
fairy tales in here??

She quickly skimmed through the remaining pages,
then discovered a long footnote at the end of the story:

“For the Flying Ship Spell, the mage who gave the
gift to the fool, used a powder of two egret’s flight feathers, a palm-sized
strip of bark from any angiosperm from any northern climate and a
permanent-enchantment adapted magic wand. See Appendix B: Essential Tools and
Supplies.

For the achievement of the thick-skulled
constitution of the fool’s first companion, one must mix a poultice of ground
ram’s horn with a solution of…”

Hmm…I’m starting to understand the purpose of
this book…but let’s see…

Cassima flipped a few more pages until she reached
another story entitled “The Tale of Lusmore.” After a brief analysis, it turned
out that the story was about a hunchback named Lusmore who stumbled across a
fairy ring, and his harmonious songs convinced the fairies to remove his hump
and give him a new life. When a friend of Lusmore’s, another hunchback, tried
the same thing, his awful voice and rash impatience made the fairies decide to
fasten Lusmore’s hump on top of the friend’s. Naturally, the friend died, the
usual fate for one who irritated fairies. Then the footnote again…

“The Hump-Detaching spell used upon Lusmore is a
feat performed easily by fairies, but with much difficulty for wizards and
witches. The simple act of detaching is simple enough, but the position of the
spine and the abdominal organs in relation to the hump must be acknowledged.
The best maneuver used in a similar predicament such as Lusmore’s is the
Straightening spell, which removes any hunched or improper posture of the
subject prior to casting. See Appendix A: Basic Spells.”

So that’s it, thought Cassima. It all
made sense now. This book of fantasies wasn’t’ merely for recreation, but to
give Mordack ideas for similar situations. How all those heroes did what they
did, step-by-step instructions on every magic spell and curse cast. It sure
takes all the mystery out of the stories, Cassima thought. And there were
quite a few situations listed in the book, from the Nordic myths to the
endeavors of the Greek heroes and heroines, and even the Arabian Nights.

The Arabian Nights…they were all told by one
person…but who?

Cassima quickly checked the book’s index, found the
introduction paragraph for the Arabian Nights and turned to it, running her
finger down the page with the same tenacity she used when she was playing the
glass harp. There…

“The tales of the Arabian Nights, told by the
young commoner turned princess Scherazade, are perhaps the most magical of all the
great myths. Many people have taken them as real, no more unreal than
Scherazade, who was also believed to have existed eons ago. For many, her
stories become reality, as did…”

Just as Cassima was whispering, “That’s it”
to herself, a loud grunt and a louder groan from the adjacent room indicated
that Mordack was having one of his talking dreams again. She promptly shut the
book and shoved it back where it once sat. Looking around the side of the door,
Cassima could see Mordack convulsing in his bed like a possessed man, pointing
his contorted hands at the ceiling.

“Cassimaaa…” he croaked. “You are mine to keep…I can
do anything with you…I can carry you with me…Make you dance for me…I can chain
you to the bed…mine…all mine…”

Wrinkling her nose in disgust, Cassima decided to
leave the library before Mordack had a sudden spasm and awakened from his loud
dreams. With one last glance at the one object in the library that had caught
her attention before, the tiny boat, she skipped out of the room like a pursued
deer, across the eternally torch-lit hall and into her next destination: the
laboratory.

The high stone-and-mortar ceilings and the large,
glowing furnace were familiar sights that met Cassima’s eyes as she entered. A
dull rumbling made the floor vibrate at a low frequency. The only place she had
not explored was the large worktable and the upper story. She decided to
investigate the latter. She trudged up the spiral staircase, careful not to
make any loud noises that would wake the wizard.

A small bookshelf reached halfway up the wall at the
top of the stairs. A few sheets of parchment lay on the bottom shelf. Cassima
decided to take a sheet and hope she could find a pen. One never knows when
some writing material could prove essential.

Further down the narrow balcony of a second floor
was something huge and metallic. Cassima tiptoed towards it, hoping it wasn’t
something alive. It wasn’t, but it appeared to be. It was a colossal machine,
hissing steam and rumbling softly, obviously the source of the vibrations. Two
plate-like trays were on either side of a vat of smelly, bubbling material that
vaguely resembled lava (from what she could remember from the descriptions in
her books at home), or some other kind of molten hellfire brooding in the huge,
round container. Above each of the round trays were strange, conical, metal
devices suspended like pendulums from a huge bar above the entire device. All
in all, it looked like a giant pair of scales mounted over a huge bowl.

Wires and tubes spurted out from the center of the
“scales,” somehow connected to the liquid, as if feeding off of its heat or
analyzing it somehow. Cassima didn’t want to know what the machine did, though
part of her did. Even if it were operational, the task of finding out just how
it worked was just too arduous, as well as the question of how much noise this
device would generate. A thing this big would certainly make a lot more noise
than an ancient organ played by an amateur. Cassima couldn’t even begin to
comprehend the volume of sound; just thinking about it gave her a headache.

Disappointed, she walked back down the stairs and to
the large table on the bottom floor. On it was a large, glass container, bottle
of ink and a couple of pens, the first writing materials that she had encountered
in her prison. Deciding to test herself to see if she still knew how to write,
considering the many months she had spent without practice, Cassima pulled out
one of the sheets of paper she had salvaged from the cabinet, dipped one of the
pens in the congealing ink, and began to write the thing that had been in her
mind since her arrival and had just reawakened with the reading of the old book
in the library:

Sheherazad –

She crossed out the name and tried again:

Sheharazhad –

Still not right…

Schaherezade.

Good enough. Cassima continued writing,
trying to remember the words to the haunting poem that wouldn’t leave her
memory.

Schaherezade, of hero’s might

Weave your stories day and night

Never falter, never fail

You’re the one that tells the tale

Do not fear the unsheathed knife

Your thoughts and dreams become your life

Fight demons in and outside you

Get through your woes and start anew

Do what your heart knows is true

When you find love and you are free

Then a hero you will be.

Cassima glanced over her work. True, it wasn’t
accurate, but it was all that she could remember, the only part of her past
that stayed with her, tucked in her mind. All other memories were physical
things, things that she couldn’t shape with a pen and paper. She could only
shape the poem, with just her bare hands.

Suddenly Cassima remembered that she was a slave, a
slave who would be punished if found in the laboratory at night. Quickly she
crumpled the poem and stuffed it in a pocket, running back to her corner in the
scullery, hopefully to let what she had just written seep into her dreams.

Chapter 14:

Mordack’s rage that one evening at dinner seemed to
deprive him of any ferocious energy he had intended to spend on Cassima in the following
days. He was much more mellow, and he seldom snarled at Cassima not to touch
anything in his room, the library or the lab while she was cleaning them. She
didn’t mind being scolded all the same, since she was free to explore them by
night. In two nights of searching, she upturned little besides a few more
legible spell books in the library, which she discreetly marked for later
reference.

But besides Mordack’s softened attitude, there
seemed to be something else. Something almost nervous…or worried. Cassima was
secretly humored at seeing him this way, but she was careful not to let her
feelings show. He just might turn on her.

One evening, however, Cassima was sweeping the floor
of Mordack’s bedroom while the wizard himself was in his library, hunched over
something that he refused to let Cassima see, even though she tried, looking
over her shoulder and peering up cautiously as she appeared to be looking at
the floor. Finally, Mordack picked whatever he was examining up and briskly
shoved it into a bookshelf. As he turned towards Cassima, she could see nothing
of the object, as if it had disappeared at the wizard’s touch.

“Cassima,” said Mordack coldly, Walking towards her
in that flowing manner that his cape always gave him. “I am leaving on a quest.
I should be back within the week.”

“What for?” asked Cassima, trying to keep her
innocent voice as she looked at Mordack.

“Not that it is any of your business, princess…”

But you’re giving it to me anyway, aren’t you?

“…But I’ve been sending my brother Manannan messages
by raven over the past few months, and he has returned none of my letters. Not
only that, but the ravens never return either, save one that came back looking
like something half-eaten. I am going to call on him in his house in Llewdor, but
I haven’t been there in several years, and it will take me some time to locate
him.

“As for you, I expect this castle to be in working
order when I return. The beasts will make sure you don’t try anything stupid.
Do not do anything that you wouldn’t do in my presence!”

Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say.

“I will take a few provisions from the kitchen, then
leave. Remember my warning, princess.”

Mordack stomped down the stairs as Cassima listened
carefully. There were twenty steps, and consequently there were twenty echoing
stomps on each of the stairs as the wizard descended, then (though Cassima
couldn’t see him) a turn to the left, straight down the hall, then left again.
Into the kitchen, take what he needs, then…

Poof. A dull explosion resounded from the
floor beneath her. Mordack had vanished, on his way to Llewdor, wherever that
was. At first Cassima was tempted to rush into the library and continue her
pursuit of spells, but the thought that had just passed over her stuck, and
made her think differently:

Why not try to find a map of the world? Surely that
would give her a perspective of just how far from her home she was. Also, it
would give her an idea of where this Llewdor was. Of course.

A map of the world would not be stuffed in a
bookshelf. It would most likely be in a drawer, which would certainly be in a
desk…yes…an oak desk. A large oak desk…like the one right at the back of the
library. Even as she thought these thoughts, Cassima was inside the
library, totally oblivious of the huge eye above the door, rummaging through
the desk, searching for a map.

Her efforts were rewarded after several minutes: she
had discovered a large, weathered, tan scroll. A brief glimpse down the long
tube revealed that it was just what she was searching for. Cassima unrolled the
map and slapped it down on the desk, poring over it to find the island that she
was standing on.

At first, she couldn’t find anything. Most of the
names of the land masses were written in a script so elaborate that even her
keen eyes couldn’t make them out. After several seconds of unsuccessful toil,
Cassima decided to find the land mass that the island was closest to instead of
the island itself. Now that would be…Serenia, thought Cassima, just as her
finger found the title, inscribed in interweaving, delicate calligraphy.
Connected to Serenia was a land called Daventry, the land that Cassima
remembered from the books that her mother had so often read to her.

A search around the land’s border led to a dotting
of islands off the west side, like someone had spilled some ink on the map.
They all appeared identical at first, but a larger dot caught her attention.
Looking closely at it revealed a tiny marker beside it that read “Mordack’s
Island.” It suddenly occurred to Cassima that the island and the marker weren’t
part of the original map. The wizard undoubtedly drew them himself, just like
he had created the entire isle. But what about the Green Isles…?

Cassima squinted her eyes in the dying light, trying
to find her homeland on the faded parchment. She tried to remember events from
the night of her kidnapping. Since she had “flown” with Mordack over the land
and sea, there had to be some visible landmarks from their journey…

The one prominent thing was the sun. Unless they had
made any sharp turns in their flight…now, which side was it on? The right? The
left? Front? Back? Cassima strained to remember this…Yes! The left! The sun
was rising on the left. She checked the legend on the map. The compass rose
was the standard N-E-S-W style, no different from any others she had seen
before. So that would mean that we flew to the island from the north…

Cassima’s finger moved upwards from Mordack’s
Island, past a blunt peninsula of Serenia that jutted out a few inches on the
map (which would mean several miles in actual size). The peninsula was
undoubtedly that patch of land they had passed over en route…also the place
over which Cassima had lost her locket…the one she wore all her life, and now
it was gone forever, lying on the beach of an unknown country…

Painfully, Cassima pushed the memory from her head
and tried so find her homeland, a place even more close to her heart,
regardless of its distance from her now. But no matter how carefully she
searched the Northern Seas (as they were labeled), she couldn’t find a single
archipelago. Not even a marker or a label. The injustice of it all burned
within her. Why Mordack would include his own unnatural, tiny island in such
glory on this map but didn’t even bother adding her own country, which had
existed much longer than he or his precious island. It was disgusting.
Repulsive. Her hatred of the wizard boiled in her blood and her hands trembled
with rage. I’ve got to get off this island.

But then another thought emerged. The land of
Llewdor. Where was it on the map? Cassima quickly scanned the surface
and almost immediately found what she was searching for: a large, western
country that shared a continent with a land called Tamir, which was the
farthest west of any of the countries. Llewdor’s coast looked out to the Western
Sea, which technically wasn’t “western” unless it was from Daventry, which was
situated several inches (at least on the map) from Llewdor. It seemed to
convert to a great distance from Serenia and Mordack’s Island. Who could say
that Mordack got to Llewdor in one piece…that is, if he got there at all…

Cassima rolled up the map and shoved it back into
its drawer, nearly squashing her finger as she slammed it shut. As she had done
the last few times she visited the library, she glanced at the tiny sailboat
replica on the desk. It was perfect in every way, structurally speaking. A
person suited for such a tiny boat would set sail in it easily…but of course,
it would be more convenient if the boat were much larger…

Cassima abandoned the intriguing thought for the
moment. Stomping over to one of the library walls, she yanked a book off one of
the shelves and cracked it open, determined to find something that would get
her away from Mordack and his isle. Some of the spells she found and reread
during the hours she scoured the library perked her interest: An enlarging
spell…a hypnotic trance…a spell to enslave lower minds…hmm…The last spell made
her have a second thought: By “lower mind,” the book undoubtedly meant the mind
of an animal or beast, though she was sure that Mordack fit the profile. But
Cassima wouldn’t cast such a spell on Dink or Sam for anything, even if it
meant doing away with the wizard. How would that free her anyway?

The hypnotism seemed promising, but it required ages
of practice, devotion and concentration, all of which Cassima had no time for.
Overall, the spells that seemed to hold the most potential were those that
required wands. Mordack was no irresponsible villain; he had taken his wand
with him, mostly out of fear of what she would do with it. Cassima had never
handled a wand before, but the hope of escape made her as willing as a budding
sorceress to try one out.

But without this essential tool, the only thing the princess
could do in the now dark library was to light a candle and practice reciting
the strange words in the incantations, trying out different accentuations and
voices until she found the one that best fit the spell in question. In addition
to saying the spells, Cassima moved her hands in motions that she assumed a
sorceress would do (if she were holding a wand, that is).

How ironic, she thought. How Jollo told me
that the glass harp was a type of magic. Even if it wasn’t real, it was real
enough for me. Then I hurt myself, just after one go at playing it. Now here I
am, practicing true magic in a powerful wizard’s library in an attempt to free
myself, and I haven’t hurt myself nearly as much as I did before. How funny.

After several practice sessions, the candle she lit
was burnt halfway down, and it seemed to be nearing midnight. Cassima carefully
put the books away and blew out the candle, waited a few more minutes for her
eyes to adjust, then turned to walk out of the room…but something was different.
Something that she hadn’t seen the many pervious nights in the
library…something glowing…coming from one of the shelves…

Cautiously, Cassima approached the light, trying to
make out what it was. She suddenly realized it was coming from the same place
Mordack had taken that object he was staring at. So it hadn’t
disappeared…

The light was coming from behind a book, which was
turned so that the cover faced her, almost completely obscuring what was hidden
behind it. Almost. Cassima moved the book aside and staggered in surprise.

It was a crystal ball.

Chapter 15:

A crystal ball. The one Mordack used to steal food
from the mainland. Just like the spheres of the gypsies of the Arabian Nights,
the ones that mystics used to foretell the futures of heroes…right here, in
this dank, dreary castle!

Cassima carefully lifted the sphere, her hands
clasped around the carved, claw-like base. The ball glowed brilliantly as she
did so, causing her to almost drop it. What would happen if a crystal ball
shattered? Trying not to make any guesses, she carefully carried the ball
to the desk and set it down, pulling up an iron stool so she could sit as she
gazed into the strange object.

It reminded her of a shimmering drop of water
encased in a shroud of fire, glowing innocently as she stared into it, trying
to make out what was inside the mysterious sphere. The light and the shadows
given off by the crystal danced across the walls and ceiling like the surface
of water. Cassima couldn’t see anything, not even a ghost of an image within
the magic ball. She tried to remember the stories of the gypsies her mother
read to her that explained just how they managed to “work” crystal balls like
the one in front of her…

Hmm…From what I remember, it was basically
focusing on the person or place you wanted to see…I can concentrate enough for
that, I guess…

The only thing Cassima was curious to see in the
crystal was Mordack. He was surely in Llewdor by now, since the only form of
teleportation he could use (the type without another person with him) was
instantaneous…but then, perhaps Mordack didn’t know just where Llewdor was.
Perhaps he got lost en route or landed in a nearby ocean. Slightly humored by
this thought, but feeling a tiniest murmur of concern out of her tendency to
never be entirely cruel, even to a crueler person, Cassima decided to see if
she could get an image of the wizard. Surely he wouldn’t know if his crystal
ball was examined by another person, who barely even scratched it…why not?

Cassima rested her palms on the desk and tried to
clear her mind, closing her eyes and breathing deeply, trying not to doze off.
After a few moments, she opened her eyes and stared, with the tenacity of a
clairvoyant, into the crystal orb. She attempted to focus on Mordack’s face,
the tiny, gray eyes, the sharp goatee, the tan, almost brown skin…trying not to
let her impatience break her gaze…all she could hear was her breath and
heartbeat, and every part of her body seemed to be becoming part of the
crystal, traveling down its many paths and tunnels, seeking out the person she
was trying to picture.

A long time seemed to pass before something started
happening. As the sound of Cassima’s heart grew louder, the pulsations of the
crystal ball seemed to become more pronounced, stronger and more vibrant.
Finally, it seemed that her heart had synchronized itself with the crystal,
every beat sounded with a bright flash of light, and in between each, a figure
began to take shape. Cassima began breathing more slowly and peering more
closely, trying to make out if it was whom she thought it was.

As she suspected, it was Mordack. He was walking
through an old, majestic mansion, unlike any abode Cassima had seen, except in
illustrations in her storybooks. It looked like the house of Cinderella’s
stepmother. The floors were of some type of wood, long, hard planks running to
plaster walls. Candles flickered in sconces and numerous doorways led to other
rooms. It was dark, naturally, just as dark as the night outside the castle
Cassima was in, with moonlight shining in through a single window at one stair
landing.

Mordack was walking up one of the flights of stairs,
one that was rimmed by elaborate iron banisters (but resembled cages or chains
more than anything to Cassima). A slight breeze ruffled his cape, coming from
the open window. The mansion seemed to be in a state of decay, as if it hadn’t
been cleaned in months. Or lived in, for that matter. Cassima’s view was
at Mordack’s back, as if she were there, following him wherever he went, though
he didn’t sense a thing.

The wizard reached the top of the stairs. The
hallway he was in now was quite different than the floor below. It was vacant
except for another window on the west wall, matching its double below. A door
to the north led into what appeared to be a bedroom, and to the east, yet
another flight of stairs led upwards, and besides that, a wide hall led to
another bedroom, which Cassima didn’t need to be close enough to notice that it
wasn’t nearly as grand as the other one.

Mordack turned his head, and the princess could see
that he had a look of genuine worry on his face, a look that she rarely saw, if
ever. He then turned left and headed into the large bedroom, which was indeed
enormous, in fact, it made both of the rooms Cassima had glimpsed before seem
small. Containing a luxurious canopy bed, a chest of drawers, a dressing table,
a towering wardrobe and a small window between the table and the wardrobe, it
was furnished with the most clashing colors an atrocious mansion like the one
it was in could have: pink blankets on the bed, blinding red carpets and a
gaudy brass-framed mirror accompanied by numerous brass-handles on anything
that could be opened. Normally, pink was a color that Cassima appreciated, but
seeing it on all these unattractive objects filled her with a sudden undeniable
loathing.

Mordack was glancing around the room with that same
concerned expression, and Cassima could not tell why until he moved closer to
the bed. The sheets were torn and scratched, as if a savage beast were
unleashed in the room. As he walked to each of the ugly furnishings, she could
see more of the numerous rips and marks: on the rug, on the table legs, on the
sides of the dresser and the wardrobe…in fact, one of the wardrobe doors was
coming off its hinges…and the mirror over the table was tilted back…and
presently, Mordack stepped on something that made a loud crunch, and he
staggered back to see the skeleton of a bird lying on the floor…in fact, two
skeletons, with some black feathers still on their bony wings. The place was
anything but orderly. It was a disaster.

“What the devil happened here?” said Mordack to
nonexistent ears. “Has my brother left the house to a mad monster?”

A sudden yowling made both Mordack and Cassima jump,
but fortunately she recovered in time to keep the image from going out of
focus. The wizard turned to see a scrawny black, golden-eyed cat crawling out
from under the bed. It was barely visible in the tenebrous room, and only the
glowing eyes indicated that the so-called shadow was alive. Upon seeing
Mordack, the animal became excited, almost frantic, yelping and meowing and
dancing around, trying to communicate something to him.

“You must be that sorceress my brother transformed
into a feline all those decades back,” said Mordack indifferently. “Now beat
it. Unless you can tell me where Manannan is.”

Again, the cat pranced around wildly, occasionally
rising to its back feet and slapping a paw to its chest, a gesture Cassima had
never seen in cats (but then, she had never had a cat as a pet, mostly out of
concern for her nightingale, Sing-Sing).

“Are you trying to tell me something?” Mordack
asked. “Trying to tell me that you ate my raven messengers and nearly
did the same for my last?”

The feline nodded exuberantly, but then shook its
head and bounded up to Mordack’s side and pressing a paw to his leg, then back
at its own chest. The wizard’s brow wrinkled in confusion.

“Listen, cat: I can’t understand a word you’re
saying, now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if I can find my brother…”

Mordack turned and began to walk out the door before
he finished his speech. At his words, the cat moaned in despair, then lunged in
front of him, hopping up and down madly and howling like an insane creature.

“What is it you want?” the wizard asked,
irritably. “You can’t be hungry, since those skeletons don’t look that old. And
Manannan’s house is full of vermin, and it’s your job to eat the
vermin.”

The cat moaned again and slapped its paw to its
chest yet again. Then it made a different gesture: it trotted to Mordack’s
side, then beckoned with a paw and looked back over its shoulder hopefully.

“You know where my brother is?” asked Mordack,
finally beginning to understand what the animal was trying to say, even though
it was obvious that he couldn’t understand a word of Cat. The cat nodded
quickly, and beckoned wildly, facing the back of the room. With nothing better
to do, the wizard slowly followed the little creature, which made a beeline to
the wardrobe with the one unhinged door. The cat made an attempt to nose open
the door, which failed, so instead, it used its front paws to pry it open, a
strangely human characteristic yet again. But still, Cassima couldn’t let her
mind wander. She had to continually focus on Mordack if she didn’t want to miss
a thing.

Inside the wardrobe were many long, silk robes, all
with one common trait: black. Nothing but the dullest of colors, the color of
soot and steel…and also the color of the black cat that paced the wardrobe
floor.

“Yes? What are you trying to say?” asked Mordack
without a touch of astonishment. “Manannan is in this closet? Because if he is,
I don’t see him.”

The cat seemed to sigh – a remarkably human sigh –
and grabbed the corner of one of the garments with a paw, cleverly grasping it
between its toes. The cat then wrapped the edge of the dark cloak around itself
like a miniature mummy. When Mordack still appeared unenlightened, the cat put
on a serious face and folded its paws across its stomach. Except for the fur
and whiskers, it suddenly looked more like a tiny sorcerer than an animal.

“Well, you would be a good imitator for any magician
to keep,” remarked Mordack, as dense as ever, though Cassima already had a
feeling of what was going on.

The cat slowly nodded, looking angrier than ever,
but at the same time satisfied.

Cassima almost collapsed with laughter before
Mordack let out an anguished, bull-like roar and fell to the floor, pounding it
with his fists. After that, she couldn’t take any more of it. Her mind snapped
out of its focused state, the crystal clouded up and she backed away from the
table, bent over with laughter at the irony of what she had just seen. Mordack
went so far just to see his brother, but ran into a cat that turned out to be him!
Cassima couldn’t get over the humor of it all. She was laughing as she never
had before in her captivity in the castle.

But there was a deeper irony that she hadn’t
discovered: how the crystal ball, which allowed her to see what was happening
to a person she hated, didn’t let her see what awful things were happening to
the two who she loved the most.

Chapter 16:

The steel black surface of the ocean lay calm and
undisturbed, reflecting a marred image of the crescent moon. The still waters
held within their depths the truth behind their deceptive exterior, the truth
that anyone who entered their midst from a beach or an island would be
instantly pulled from land and far out to sea, where a certain death awaited.
The few people that knew of this were those who had either been drawn out
themselves or witnessed the event happening to a friend. Even those who had
heard from a secondary source or rumor took the stories as undeniable fact.

Similarly, the peaceful, green islands that sat
nestled in the dark sea presently held an obscure, deep and terrible secret,
one that had festered continually beneath the skin of ignorance for many years,
but was finally starting to break through, yet still retaining its nebulous
shroud of confusion.

The center where the darkness originated from was
within the great palace of the main island. For months now, the King and Queen
of the Green Isles, Caliphim and Allaria, were both mourning the loss of their
only daughter, so much so that they could barely continue their reign. After
their grief subsided enough for them to talk about Cassima without breaking
down, the questions began emerging: who could’ve done this? Why did he or she
take Cassima? What kind of motive would the kidnapper have? Was Cassima still
alive? Where could she have been taken in such a short time?

Most of these questions were directed at Abdul
Alhazred, the Grand Vizier, who always replied with the same words: “I don’t
know.” Somehow he was able to always get away with his shrewd responses, more
than likely it was he turmoil as a whole that ironically prevented any further
questioning.

The hostility between the islands was increasing to
a final apex, and what was bound to happen next was clear: each land, with the
exception of the Isle of the Crown, would detach itself from the others,
cutting off communication and trade. Unless something drastic was done soon,
the entire kingdom could be in danger of collapse.

Now the King and Queen of the islands lay at rest in
their bedroom, asleep side by side, their dreams untroubled for once in the
time since Cassima’s disappearance. But only a few yards away, their downfall
was waiting to make his move.

Alhazred lay quietly on his canopied bed, pretending
to sleep but scheming intently. He had gotten this far without being suspected.
Shamir Shamazel had safely delivered the letters to and from the vizier’s
fellow members of the black cloak without being intercepted by anyone or
anything with suspicions on its mind. For the last several hours he had lain
motionless, watching the shadows from his lamp bounce across the walls and
ceiling, trying to restrain his waking dreams of power and his long-time wish
to rule this land that had captured his fancy so many years ago.

Frequently, his mind would wind itself around
Cassima, that beautiful little princess with her innocence shutting her off
from the real, cruel world outside. So beautiful, but with too much impudence
for a woman. She was always talking back to Alhazred, as if she was the queen
instead of the queen’s daughter. He wondered if her stubbornness was persisting
as she remained in Mordack’s castle on his remote, handcrafted island. Probably
not, but it should surely be muted to some degree by now, Alhazred thought.
Women should not be allowed to have such independent natures. Their task is to
serve their husbands and make themselves suitable for them. Sure, as children,
both boys and girls were allowed freedom to live in equally with each other,
but as adults, women were never higher than men. Ever. Cassima should have
learned that when she was younger.

When she was younger…of course. When Alhazred first
arrived in the kingdom, a request from King Caliphim. Cassima was so young and
lovely, even as a young girl of four or five years old who would escape from
her room to go play on the beach or in the gardens. But how she changed as she
grew older, from a teenager to a young woman. She began to question everyone,
especially Alhazred, the only person who didn’t trust him and would tell it to
his face.

Perhaps it was good that Mordack had taken her to
his island. No more rebellious semi-princess for Alhazred to deal with and try
to convince her of his trustworthiness. Still, deep inside he missed her
beauty, the way she walked and spoke to her mother, Allaria. But a woman with a
disposition like Cassima’s wasn’t deserving of such a beautiful appearance. If
a girl was unintelligent but lovely, that was fine, but lovely and too smart
for her own good was not.

But there was no time to think about Cassima now.
The climax of Alhazred’s history was about to be shaped, and there would be no
chance of him missing it. That was because he was going to create it himself. Himself.
With the same hands that shook hands with Caliphim in agreement to become his
chief advisor. The hands that patted little Cassima on the forehead when she
was still a child. The hands that wrote all those letters to the darkest
wizards of the age, the hands that made his own genie dance and obey his every
command as willingly as a puppet. The same two hands were about to make his one
dream come true. He didn’t need three wishes. He didn’t need time to decide. He
knew what he wanted, and he was going to get it, no matter what happened to the
others.

Alhazred slowly rose from the wrinkled blankets.
They had become snarled and creased even though he had hardly moved in the
hours he had lain upon the bed. Perhaps it was his pulsating, wild mind or his
livening blood that twisted the surface he rested on, but he barely noticed
anything as he stood up and stretched his stiff muscles. He was still wearing
the clothes he had worn during the day, the scarlet, embroidered vest; the
black sandals; the long, ankle-length blue robe that appeared blood-black in the
dim, flickering lantern light.

Smoothing back his limp, black hair, he gazed into
the dancing glow of the lantern and at the shadows that romped across the
surfaces of the room, giving life to even the most lifeless of forms: the
trunk, the doorframe, the tall cabinet, the table the light rested upon as well
as an oblong, blue bottle…

Slowly, Alhazred slipped off his sandals and stepped
into his silk slippers. The ideal footwear for sneaking about, he decided. Then
he stealthily padded over to the large trunk he kept locked at the foot of his
bed and knelt before it like a priest before an altar. Reaching quickly into a
pocket, he removed from it the small, gold key that he always kept with him, no
matter what outfit he wore, whether it was on a string around his wrist, a
chain around his neck or fastened to a drawstring of one of his garments tucked
within his robes, the key was always kept close and out of sight. He could not
remember a day he had found himself without it.

Inserting the key into the gaping hole of the heavy
padlock, which resembled an empty space in a mouth where a tooth used to be,
the vizier subtly rotated the gold rod clockwise, watching the light dance on
the cold metal in a rapid roundabout with his own shadow. As a child, he had
often wondered how locks work, and if there was more than the elfin sprite or
jinn that he was always told inhabited the inner workings of the lock. He was
no person to take apart objects of such a complexity and reassemble them just
as easily, but still he often wondered what it would be like to see inside the
metal box and watch the metal teeth of the key push the one rod of the lock’s
horseshoe-like shape out, eliminating the barrier between the person and the
contents of the container.

A gentle click informed Alhazred that the trunk was
unlocked. Carefully he removed the lock and hinged open the heavy lid, trying
to see clearly what was within. It was too dark within the trunk to see
anything, and he did not have time for his eyes to adjust. Time was no longer
on his side. He glided across the room to the small table and picked up the
lantern, toting it back to the trunk’s gaping maw, casting the welcome light
upon the contents within.

Inside the worn wood and leather case were pieces of
parchment and blank scrolls, as well as many much older writings bedecked with
ancient runes and hieroglyphics. There were also many written in English: the
letters that Alhazred had received from the Brothers of the Black Cloak and
kept safely inside his trunk for future reference. Beside the letters and
scrolls was a pile of battered leather books, the topmost one bearing the title
Guidebook to the Land of the Green Isles. Though a bit out of date, he
still valued it as he had on his first voyage to the Isles, having purchased it
from an older wizard from a town near his southern homeland.

Moving the lantern cautiously over the contents,
Alhazred squinted in the dim light, his eyes recognizing many familiar baubles
and trinkets, various pieces of junk that were probably old gifts of
recognition from the royal couple that he had filed away after his exaggerated
words of thanks. Suddenly, his hand and eyes stopped. He had found what he was
searching for: a small, needle-like dagger, nestled among his other possessions
as safely as an egg. He paused for a few moments, admiring its beauty and
simplicity, yet at the same time its infinite complexity and possibilities.
Then he reached in with his other gaunt, shadowed hand and lifted it out by the
silver handle, turning it in the lantern light to examine each side of the
instrument.

Looking in the trunk again, he found the second
object he had been seeking. It was a plain, round stone, almost hollow in the
checkerboard of dark and light that played across the box’s inside. Placing the
lantern on the carpeted floor, his eyes unwavering from the stone’s position,
Alhazred reached into the trunk and retrieved the spherical rock. It felt light
and roughly textured in his grasp. Lifting the dagger to the rock and pressing
the blade of the former against the surface of the latter, the vizier paused
for a moment before swiftly dragging the weapon across the rough stone.

A brief, yet impacting shriek of metal on stone
broke the silence of the room, but Alhazred was certain that no one heard it except
him. The sound was loud only because of the current situation. In any other
place or time, it would be nearly imperceptible, but now it was as loud as
thunder. With the sound came a brief puff of powder from the rock, vivid
against the glow of the lamp.

In a few minutes, it will be done, he thought
as he raised the dagger to the stone again. He raked it down with a sound not
nearly as impacting as the first one.

I have it all planned. No one will know.

Another draw down the simple, round, hard product of
earth.

The dead tell no tales, and this weapon will
leave none to tell.

Another shriek accompanied by a puff of dust.

Only a few more, and then I will be ready.

Alhazred sharpened the dagger three more times
against the rock, then examined his tool with pride and a hint of tension. He
placed the rock back in the trunk, and pressed his thumb against the tip of the
sharp weapon. There was a slight sting of pain, like that a bee or wasp leaves
on its victim. The vizier withdrew his finger and smirked in satisfaction at
the drop of blood that blossomed on the end of his weathered digit.

Now everything was ready. There was no more time to
waste. Alhazred blew out the lantern and felt his way across his bedroom to his
table. There he uncorked the blue bottle and whispered down its thin neck:

“Shamir! Out, now! But quietly, I warn you!”

Thick smoke billowed from the container’s opening,
and gradually the nebulous cloud formed into the shape of a shabbily dressed
man, wearing baggy pants, a small turban and a gold armband with a golden spark
in his eyes.

“Yes, Master?”

“You will make sure that nobody comes near me as I
make my way to the King and Queen’s room. Disguise yourself as a guard if you
have to, but don’t – I repeat, don’t – let anyone see me.”

“Of course, Master!”

Nodding solemnly, Alhazred made his way to his
bedroom door and opened it silently, paying little heed to the cold gust of
wind that ran past his ankles as he stepped into the hallway. His slippers made
no noise on the red, carpeted floor as he tiptoed through the dark corridor,
past his study, Cassima’s former room, and finally to the last door that
stood between him and his goal. The door that always remained unlocked, in case
any “emergency” occurred within, the door that was only a short walk from his
chamber. Outside, though he was unaware, the sliver of a moon slipped behind a
sea of dark clouds and the stars shivered in the black heavens. Clenching his
dagger tightly, Alhazred turned the brass knob of the door and entered to at
last fulfill his goal.

Chapter 17:

Cassima’s placing the crystal ball in its original
position was so precise and exact that Mordack never knew that she had spied on
him and Manannan, let alone discovered it. But her feelings of glee were
quickly extinguished when the wizard returned home the next day with his
cat-brother tucked under his arm, his approach punctuated with a thunderous
roar coming from across the ocean. He arrived in the usual “flying” style,
surrounded by a ball of fire and wind, yet, as Cassima observed through a
castle window, still standing stoically as he flew over the rocky reefs
surrounding the island, over the twin stone snake-heads (which she could not
see from her viewpoint but knew were there), then landing in front of the
portcullis (obviously not wanting to demonstrate that path-fusing trick of
his).

The princess ran from the window and down to the
chamber at the base of the stairs as she heard the iron gate screeching open. It
slammed shut just as she grabbed a dirty rag and began buffing one of the
statues, trying to give the wizard the impression that she had been working
several hours prior to his return.

Surprisingly, Mordack wasn’t the first person she
saw striding into the room she was in. Instead, it was the black cat that she
glimpsed in the crystal ball, which turned out to be the wizard’s brother.
Cassima almost snickered at the sight of him sauntering through the doorway as
if he was still the man he once was, but she remembered just in time that she
couldn’t let Mordack see her acting that way towards Manannan. Surely he would
somehow realize that she knew who the cat was, and then the whole interrogation
routine would start. She had to act surprised, as if she had never seen the cat
before and had no idea what had happened during Mordack’s visit with his
brother. Cassima looked over her shoulder at the cat and put on a puzzled
expression.

“I have returned, princess,” said Mordack, walking
through the doorway and standing over her (even though Cassima was only a few
inches shorter than him).

“Welcome back,” she replied unenthusiastically,
glancing at him, then at the cat again. “How did your journey go? What’s the
cat for?”

Mordack’s face twisted into an expression of fury
and sadness, just the kind of face Cassima expected. “My…my brother…I met him,
princess.”

“That’s good,” said Cassima, going back to polishing
the head of the winged mermaid statue leaning against the wall.

“Some…sorcerer cursed him…he is…the cat…is…my
brother.”

“No!” gasped Cassima, whirling around and staring at
the cat in feigned surprise, fighting not to burst into laughter. “Who could
have done such a thing?”

The cat scowled at her and snarled something vulgar
in Cat, which she was thankful she couldn’t understand. Perhaps the feline
could see through her false act. Animals always seemed to see more than humans
could.

“I don’t know,” said Mordack, clearly still upset.
“But I swear that I will find out. In the meantime, Manannan will be a resident
in my castle. You will see to it that he is taken care of and well fed. Treat
him just as you would another person. Remember…I will be watching you.”

Mordack promptly disappeared, leaving a foul smell
in Cassima’s nose and a fouler hatred in her mind. Muttering something under
her breath, she picked up the rag and began to walk out of the room to get
herself something to eat from the kitchen, since she hadn’t eaten since the
previous night. But before she reached the stone threshold, Manannan the cat
suddenly darted in front of her and sat down in the middle of the doorway,
blocking her path. Cassima tried to edge past him, but he refused to let her
by. He glanced around her legs, towards the statue she was previously working
on, as if motioning for her to finish the job.

The princess was uncertain if he really was until
she heard a noise that sounded very much like the cat clearing his throat as he
sat up primly and twitched his tail agitatedly. Sighing angrily, Cassima turned
around and walked back to the statue, rubbing the rag in circles while silently
fuming, well aware of the black beast that crouched behind her, waiting
patiently until her task was complete.

Manannan continued to follow Cassima around the
castle, monitoring her every move as she started each new cleaning job and
wasn’t permitted to finish until the cat let her. Apparently, he was a real
stickler for cleanliness when he was a man, but not the sort of person to do
the job himself. Cassima wondered who once kept his majestic house clean, which
obviously was at one time tidier than it appeared to her in the crystal ball.

Whenever she began to slow down or even take a brief
rest from her chores, Manannan would pad over to her and dig his claws into her
bare legs. The first couple of times he did this, Cassima was tempted to swat
him, but quickly reminded herself that Mordack could be watching her, and a
kick to his brother would mean a much more painful kick to the scullery girl,
and it surely wouldn’t be with his boot.

The work that Cassima accomplished that day was
probably more than she accomplished in any of the weeks she slaved away within
the castle. Fortunately, Manannan’s monitoring was occasionally interrupted by
Mordack, who would poof un unexpectedly and say something along the lines of:
“Now, now, dear brother, Cassima already cleaned this floor yesterday,” or
“Manannan, I think four polishes is enough for her, don’t you?” and Manannan
would reluctantly nod in agreement as Mordack would send Cassima off to her
next task, with the cat close behind.

She sensed that the wizard’s interventions were not
on her behalf, but were some means of making peace with his brother, whom
Cassima assumed was probably angry that Mordack had sent him messages over the
few months he was a cat, but had never considered coming to see what was wrong
until now. He was probably trying to establish that “brotherly bond” that
Cassima had so often read about in stories. It was always the same thing: the
youngest son always got the best, while the older brothers made all the
mistakes and ended up in poverty. She wasn’t sure if Manannan was the “older
brother,” or if the two had had any struggles like the brothers in her stories,
but it seemed that all siblings became cross with each other at some time in
their lives. But a situation such as this seemed a little bizarre.

When the sun finally started to set that day and
Cassima was sweeping the dining room floor, Mordack appeared again and
requested that she should begin preparing dinner. But as she turned and the
black cat began to trot after her, the wizard called softly to the cat and
gestured with his finger.

“Manannan, you come with me. We have things we must
talk ab – well, try to talk about. I know you can understand me, but I must
find a way to understand you. We will talk in my room. This way.”

The cat grimaced slightly at being called like an
ordinary house pet, but then willingly walked to Mordack’s heel and followed
him down the hall and out of the room through the farthest hallway from where
Cassima stood. Gratefully, she ran down the corridor to the kitchen, where she
threw the broom against the table, nearly frightening Sam (who was curled up,
dozing near the smoldering fireplace) out of his wits. The blue, ram-like creature
sprang to his hooves and blinked several times before focusing on Cassima.

“You know, Mordack brought his brother back from his
journey,” said Cassima, reaching into a cupboard and finding a tin of salt,
which she removed and set on the counter.

Sam blinked again, not understanding what she said.
Even though the beast couldn’t speak, Cassima could read his expression
perfectly: What brother? I have seen no other person in the castle. Who do
you mean?

“You may not believe this, but it’s the cat,” the
princess said, assuming that Sam had noticed the black animal following her
everywhere. “Someone ka-poofed him into a cat somehow.”

Sam almost snickered as Cassima noticed a small fish
on a metal plate resting on the counter. She smiled lightly as she glanced back
at her strange, blue friend.

“Know any good ways to prepare fish for animals?”
she asked.

Dinner did not go nearly as good as Cassima had
hoped. She was still almost starving from her lack of food, and even more
drained from her increasing rage towards Manannan. The dishes she prepared for
the two diners were both fish, and both roughly equal in size. She didn’t know
if Mordack had stolen the fish en route to the island or obtained it earlier in
the month, but both man and cat seemed to enjoy their meals.

Cassima sat in her usual spot at the end of the
table, watching Mordack and his brother eat. It was, in a way, almost
ludicrous, since Manannan, even though he was a cat, and a mangy one at that,
was sitting in the chair closest to his sibling, with his paws resting on the
table. He did not eat with a knife and fork, of course. He ate the way any
normal cat would, his furry face mashed into the plate, his little mouth
smacking greedily as if this were the first full meal he’d eaten in months.

Mordack’s manners were a near opposite of his
brother, chewing slowly and solemnly, every now and then looking at Manannan
with a mixture of pity and happiness that he had reunited with him at last,
combined with occasional stern glances at Cassima. His black wand lay on the
table on the right side of his plate, as if it were part of the silverware
setting. If Cassima weren’t so mad, she would probably find it fairly amusing.

“I appreciate your efforts to make my brother’s meal
satisfactory on his first evening back,” Mordack said through a mouthful of
fish. “Hopefully you will improve as his stay here continues.”

Cassima blinked but said nothing.

“I understand that you were neglecting some of your
chores, and I am glad that my brother saw it fit to discipline you. He did a
better job than I could.”

Manannan grinned with his greasy face, and Cassima
sat still, not looking up, the pain from the scratches on her legs slowly
increasing.

“But it is not Manannan’s job to force you to do
your chores,” the wizard continued. “You should have learned by now that you
must do them yourself, not wait to be admonished by…”

“He’s a cat,” said Cassima almost inaudibly.

“What?”

“He’s a cat,” said Cassima again, this time
much louder, gesturing wildly at Manannan. “Can’t you see that your brother is
surely himself on the inside, but on the outside, he should still be treated
like any lower beast? Like the way you treat the beasts in this castle?”

“Silence, girl. You will not talk like that in my
presence.”

“But he is!” she yelled furiously, her mind
burning with fury, unable to maintain her overflowing emotions. “He’s been
being an absolute menace to me all day! He doesn’t deserve such luxuries like that!
Don’t you see how ridiculous he looks perched on that chair? Animals aren’t
supposed to eat like that, even if they are wizards on the inside! Even if they
are dark sorcerers or brothers of men who kidnap princesses from their
kingdoms…”

“That’s enough!!” roared Mordack, his voice
rattling the ceiling. Cassima could see it coming. His right hand was going for
his wand, which was still resting on the tabletop. She was ready to dodge the
beam of light that would surely be shooting from the tip at any moment, but her
expectations flipped over themselves as the following events occurred:

Mordack didn’t grasp his wand with his hand, instead
he slammed his palm on it with a force that shook the table. At the same
instant, a blast of light rocketed from the end of the wand, streaking down the
length of the table, heading straight for Cassima. She tried to dodge it at the
last minute, but it was too late. The light hit her in the left shoulder and
she let out a brief shriek, nearly falling off her chair. In the same moment,
her skin began to darken and her body began to rapidly decrease in size so that
she shrank out of Mordack’s view.

Within seconds, he couldn’t see any part of Cassima
from where he sat. Slowly rising from his seat and picking up his wand, the
wizard walked down the length of the table to Cassima’s place and looked in
interest at the wooden chair. A tiny, black mouse was crouched in the center of
the seat, trembling uncontrollably.

“That should teach you not to talk to me that way,”
said Mordack in satisfaction. “Manannan? Give the princess a run.”

Manannan leapt off his chair and bounded towards the
chair his brother was standing by. Cassima screamed and sprung off her own
chair, a minute, black blur that shot across the floor with the cat in pursuit.
Just when it seemed that Manannan was going to catch her, she sped into a large
crack in the wall, pressed against the wall and breathing fast, a large paw
clawing at her whiskers.

Mordack’s footsteps rumbled across the floor and his
boots appeared behind the cat.

“You are lucky that my spells are temporary,” he
said coldly. “I haven’t learned how to cast more permanent ones. Manannan, play
with her all you want, but don’t eat her. And when she starts
shimmering, let her out before she becomes human again. I wouldn’t want my
future bride to be responsible for destroying my wall. I will be in my room.
Good night.”

A reddish puff of smoke and Mordack was gone. But
Manannan remained, grinning nastily through the hole at the silky black mouse
that Cassima had become, where she knew he would remain until the wizard’s
spell wore off, which would undoubtedly be several hours.

Cassima sighed and sat down on her haunches, trying
not to look at her hairless tail as she cowered at the mercy of the cat.

Chapter 18:

Cassima’s punishment had an effect more lasting than
any of Mordack’s previous ones, including the temporary imprisonment in the
dungeon. Now she argued less and worked more, avoiding the cat whenever she
could.

For a few weeks they seemed to live in peace with
each other until one cloudy day when Cassima was sweeping Mordack’s room and
Manannan was lying on a small rug in the center of the floor. Since he refused
to move when the princess approached him with her broom, she swept as
thoroughly as she could all around the rug until she could see a significant
increase in the cleanliness of the bedroom. All the while she kept her eye on
the library, in which there was still that storybook and all those spell books
that just might hold the key to her escape…if only she could find it.

As she thought these thoughts, she was watching
Manannan, waiting for him to move off the rug so she could clean under it.
Mordack had grown more watchful of her work, and he would surely notice a dirty
spot under a rug in his own quarters. When Manannan refused to move, Cassima
made hissing noises at him and gestured for him to leave. The cat remained as
still as a statue. Since swatting him off the carpet with the broom was
something the wizard would certainly not approve of, she angrily whispered to
him:

“Listen, cat: move! I have to clean under there.
Mordack will punish me again if I leave a spot uncleaned. Come on, scoot.”

Manannan looked at her lazily and paid no heed of
her commands.

“Please, Manannan,” Cassima pleaded, remembering his
name. “Just for a few minutes and then you can have your rug back.”

The cat hissed and twitched its tail, declining to
give up its rug. After several more unsuccessful minutes of persuasion, Cassima
shrugged and left the room to sweep the next place Mordack had assigned her to:
the laboratory. Before she had reached the lab doorway, Manannan began howling
in an ear-scraping cacophony, a sound like claws on metal. Fuming, Cassima
turned and stomped back into the bedroom, where the feline still lay on his rug,
caterwauling as if something was eating him, his tiny mouth opened as widely as
it could.

The cat continued screeching and the princess kept
yelling at him to stop until suddenly, Mordack poofed into the room. At the
same time, Manannan leapt off the rug and stood beside it, looking proud.

“Well, now,” Mordack said, his voice softened by the
sight of his brother. “What is it, Manannan? Has Cassima kicked you or swatted
you with that ratty broom of hers?”

“It’s not mine,” snapped Cassima, “And I didn’t even
touch him.” Her voice trailed off as she noticed the cat pointing frantically
at the rug he was laying on several moments before. She became uneasy with the
realization of what was going on.

“What’s this?” Mordack asked, lifting up a corner of
the rug. Underneath it was a week’s accumulation of dust, dirt and cat hair,
most of it appearing to be stuffed there on purpose by someone Cassima didn’t
have to guess.

“Well,” said Mordack, letting the corner fall
and turning to her. “I see you haven’t been cleaning as well as you should,
girl.”

“He was lying there and wouldn’t let me,” Cassima
explained angrily, pointing at the cat, who was already giving Mordack the
impression that his position beside the rug was the one he had occupied, not on
the rug as she was accusing him or lying upon. The wizard raised an eyebrow and
glared at Cassima icily.

“I don’t believe your far-fetched claims, Cassima,”
he said. “But I will let you go on without a punishment this time. After you
clean the laboratory, I would like you to clean the pipe organ in the hallway:
keys, pipes, wood, everything. Don’t leave one area undone. Don’t make me check
on you before dinner.”

As he vanished, Cassima sniffed in fury at the
injustice and looked back at Manannan, who was resuming his place on the rug,
snickering wickedly at her. She stifled a growl under her breath and suppressed
an impromptu kick at the cat, but her gentle, polite demeanor couldn’t prevent
her from saying the three words that were dominating her mind at the moment:

“I hate you.”

Cassima’s strong but brief enmity with Manannan
didn’t make her forget her one mission to visit the library that night, just as
she tried to do every night. When Manannan first arrived, she was concerned
that she wouldn’t be able to explore the castle at night, since cats, as she
remembered, were typically nocturnal beasts. But apparently, the ex-wizard’s
human past was so strong that he had sleeping habits just like a human, resting
at night and moving about during the day. After Cassima realized this, she was
quite relieved that her night-owl routine wouldn’t be halted just because of
one animal that just might notice her snooping around in his brother’s books.

As the constellation Orion reached its highest point
in the sky, Cassima crept into the library and pulled one of the books off the
shelves. It was one that she had discreetly marked with a piece of charcoal on
the shelf’s base. She leisurely flipped through the index until she came upon a
spell that had caught her eye before: the enlarging spell. But like the many
other enchantments that interested her before, it required a wand…a wand…

Quickly, she glanced through the door at Mordack’s
still form on the bed. The wizard was sound asleep, snoring loudly, with a
black blob of a cat resting by his feet. His wand lay glowing softly on the
bedside table.

Was Cassima ready for this? She had read the spells
over and over and practiced them frequently as well. All she needed to actually
cast one of the spells was a wand…and a wand was resting just a few feet away,
within easy reach…

But what if he awakened? What would become of her
then? As it had already done countless times before, fear seized her and
gripped her mind. She couldn’t do this…it was too dangerous…it could mean
death…But as she backed away from the door, a rustle of paper in her pocket
caught her attention. It was the poem she had copied from memory, the poem of
Scherazhad…or however her name was spelled. Holding the book in one hand,
Cassima took out the poem and read over the hypnotizing lines, and her courage
returned. Of course she could do something as simple as taking a wand. The
woman described in the poem had stared her death in the face for one thousand
and one nights and told her stories without fail…she had defied the odds and
freed herself as well…something Cassima could surely do.

Without pausing to reconsider, Cassima laid the
leather-bound book she was holding on the stone floor, tiptoed into Mordack’s
room and picked up the pulsating rod. It was warm to her touch, and its glow
made her hands appear blue in the darkness. Triumphant, she turned and walked
back to the library and looked around, using the wand as a torch. Now what
could she use it for…

She gave it a slight flick, uttering one of the
archaic phrases she had run across in one of the books. A ball of green light
spat from its end, bounced around the room, off the walls, bookcases and
ceiling before hitting her in the thigh with a brief surge of electricity.
Wincing, Cassima hopped on one foot for a few moments before the feeling
returned to her leg and she could stand straight again. She should be more
careful. That blast could have been much larger, large enough to knock her
out…and be found by Mordack the next morning holding his wand in her
hand…not a good thought, Cassima decided. She had to use her knowledge of
magic, which, although limited, was the only way off the island.

Cassima moved the wand around the room, looking for
something that would inspire her or give her an idea. The spines of the books,
facing her like the backs of people, gave her little enlightenment. Not even
the lifelike iron stools brought any ideas to mind. The thought of somehow
animating the spider-like things and making them crawl all over the castle was
something that Cassima couldn’t bring herself to thinking of.

Finally, she found it: the one thing that had truly
caught her attention on her first visit to this storehouse of information deep
within the crumbling castle of the wizard Mordack…the tiny boat. She remembered
how she had admired it before, the find craftsmanship, the detailed, realistic
design, the simple yet complex shape, the little compartment in the middle,
perfect for seating a person inside…

It was all coming together now. The way of escaping
the island…Jason used it. Odysseus used it. Sinbad the Sailor used it. A boat.
Of course. The most efficient and practical way off an isolated, water-bound
land mass was sitting on the table in front of Cassima…the only downside was
its size. And now she had a way to make it bigger…

The princess lifted the boat in her hand and placed
it on the floor. Then she opened the book, holding it in her left hand and the
wand in her right. Carefully using the glowing rod, she read over the enlarging
spell which spanned the two pages. Then, when she was at last ready, Cassima
held the wand in front of her and recited the word inscribed beside the note
“Increaseth object size twicefold.” There was no blast of light, but she did
feel a cool pulsation of energy pass through the wand and the tiny boat began
to slowly grow. From a length no longer than the width of one of the book’s
pages, the model grew until it was almost two feet long, then stopped. Cassima
examined the still small craft. It was just as perfect as ever, with the sail
fluttering ever so slightly with her soft breath. The niche in the center
appeared even more spacious, just large enough for a cat to fit in.

She was almost ready to enlarge the boat again, when
another nagging factor entered her mind: the size of the library’s doorway.
Would it be large enough to let such a large boat through? After all, Cassima
could only consider the boat seaworthy when it was at least four times larger
than its present length, say maybe eight feet or so. The door would certainly
not allow a boat of that size to be shoved through. Impossible.

But as soon as this thought was sinking into
Cassima’s head, a new idea suddenly emerged: take the boat to the labyrinth.
The passageways in there were more than wide enough to accommodate a small
boat, as was the large doorway to the scullery. When Mordack was asleep or away
on another of his journeys, Cassima could drag the full-sized boat out through
the gate and down to the shore that she and the wizard had passed over when
they first arrived. From there, she could sail for the Isles. She knew of their
approximate location, north of Serenia and to the east, but she should probably
take along the map, just in case…

But not now. Now she had to get the boat out of the
library, where Mordack wouldn’t see it. She rarely saw him in his own library,
let alone the barren labyrinth. Surely he wouldn’t notice the disappearance of
one small model of a sailboat. Clutching the wand in her right hand, Cassima
tucked the boat and the book under her other arm and snuck out of the library,
through the wizard’s bedchamber, down the hallway and the stairs, all twenty of
them, past the dining table, through the hallway below the upper one, through
the dark kitchen, through the oak door which could only be opened from one
side, and into the tenebrous depths of the stone maze.

There, she set the boat down on the hard, cold floor
held the book and the wand as she did before and recited the same phrase used
to enlarge the boat to twice its size. Again, the cool sensation in the wand,
and the boat slowly grew until it was almost as long as Cassima was tall from
stem to stern, about four feet. It still had at least three feet of space between
it and the labyrinth walls on its port and starboard sides. But it still wasn’t
large enough for her to sit in.

Once more, she recited the magic word, and the boat
swelled again, its mast nearly touching the ceiling, but finally, it was large
enough. Cassima climbed into the little compartment. It was slightly cramped
but adequate for someone of her size. She had definitely lost weight during her
captivity, and only now was she beginning to see the advantages of being so
thin.

Yet even now, when her spirits were beginning to
soar high again, another problem pecked at her head: she had no means of
steering the boat. The mast was fixed to the deck, and the sail couldn’t be
rotated. How could she maneuver this precarious craft through such wild
currents? Perhaps she shouldn’t depend entirely on the sail…think of
something else to steer it with…

Oars! Why not? She had never used them
before, but, just as she had learned how to use a wand, she could certainly
learn how to row. But where could she find a pair of oars in this castle? Use
a substitute, Cassima. Some suitable alternative. You used magic to shape the
boat. Use it to shape the oars.

Words kept coming into her mind from unknown places.
Think…an oar is a simple shape…like a rod with a bowl at the end. It looks
almost like a giant spoon…A spoon! She almost spoke the last two words out
loud in her excitement. There were dozens of spoons in the scullery. She
arranged them at Mordack’s place every day for breakfast and dinner. Quickly,
she ran through the open door and into the kitchen, where she began searching
through drawers, trying to find a pair of spoons. But a metal spoon wouldn’t
do, especially for the job she intended to use it for. Something that large
made of steel would be impossible to lift, and would sink like a rock if she
let go of it when she was out to sea. She needed to find a wooden spoon. A
sturdy, lightweight, wooden spoon.

Several minutes of searching turned up just what
Cassima was looking for: a wooden serving spoon stained with food on the bowl,
but still perfect. Placing the utensil on the counter, she looked through the
other drawers and cupboards, including some she had never opened before,
revealing cobwebs and large spiders. Her search yielded no rewards or spoons
like the one she already had. She would have to control the boat with only one
oar. Well, it could be worse, she concluded. At least I have something
to steer with.

Cassima placed the spoon on the kitchen floor and
enlarged it the same number of times she had enlarged the boat. She ended up
with a long, wooden “oar,” about six feet in length. She picked up, satisfied
with its lightness. Carrying it into the labyrinth, she laid it upon the boat,
propped up against one of the shallow sides.

The next time you leave, Mordack, she thought
to herself, smiling with triumph, I’ll be leaving too.

Chapter 19:

The next day was successful (by Cassima’s standards,
at least). Mordack didn’t notice the absence of the boat, nor did he question
Cassima about it. She had returned Mordack’s wand to his bedside table
immediately after her using it, and wiped it free of fingerprints as a
precaution. He never noticed that it had been in use either. However, Cassima
was rather hungry as she finished preparing the wizard’s breakfast and took an
old carrot from the scullery to gnaw on as she swept the dining room floor.

She had been eating less and less over the previous
weeks. She discovered that hunger kept her alert and awake during the night,
whereas eating something filled up her small capacity for food and ensured a
deep sleep without a chance to explore the place. Her appetite for food had
decreased along with her sleep requirement, the reason for it probably the
scarcity of food along with the limited time she had to eat it. Cassima could
handle this, though, for now, no matter what she ate, even if it was a tiny
portion, was enough to satisfy her.

Now that she had her escape planned, she had more
free time to explore the regions outside the library. The one other place that
interested her was the colossal machine in the laboratory. Over the following
nights, she examined it from all angles, trying to figure out just what it did,
and, more importantly, what sounds would come out of it if it was activated.
Normally, Cassima was indifferent to machines and other mechanical devices,
since they were rare within the Green Isles, but the sight of something so
large and grotesque revolted her immensely.

She continually wondered what objects should be
placed upon the twin plates on either side of the apparatus, if indeed
something should be placed upon them. She wondered what purpose the odd, glass
tubes coming up from the bubbling vat served, as well as the odd, globelike
ball that encased many of the tubes. Even more puzzling were the contents of
the vat itself. Some weird, slimy, red concoction was all Cassima could see
from her viewpoint. She could not tell what exactly it was or what it was
supposed to do, besides give the air around it a pleasant stench not unlike
rotting cheese.

When the princess took the ball of thread she had
decided to carry around with her after the wizard locked her in the labyrinth
weeks before, dropped the end of it into the giant container and withdrew it
shortly afterwards, the end that had touched the substance was eaten away,
totally dissolved. There was also a blackish smoke trailing from the frayed
end. Feeling slightly squeamish, Cassima decided not to drop anything more into
the vat. Who knew what would or could happen.

Her freedom from the anxiety she associated with the
library didn’t keep her from visiting it, though. She continued her poring
through the large book of stories, and the magic spells that came with them.
Ironically, the spells held little interest to her any longer, it was the
stories that made her continue her literary quest through the volume.

She was growing more aware of the roles that the
women played in the stories. Ariadne was the one who gave Theseus the ball of
thread that helped him through the maze, but that was all she did to aid him.
Then he took her from her homeland and abandoned her on a beach. In another
myth, the sorceress Medea aided Jason in his quest for the Golden Fleece, but
later betrayed him when he distrusted her. And then there was the story of Princess
Margaret, who was made a tender of geese by her evil servant, Ellen. In the
end, it was her pleading words to her mother that alerted the prince, who was
going to unknowingly be wed to Ellen, that she was his loved one. But Margaret
never raised a fist or a knife against Ellen or went against her wishes. None
of the women in the stories were like that. They were always obedient, always
accepting the fate chosen for them, never going against the wishes of anyone
greater.

Scherazhade wasn’t like that, though. Her words were
as mighty as any sword, and she defied the odds and saved herself, as well as
changing the hearts of all who heard her stories. Ulrica was right when she
said I was like her, Cassima thought. I’m not as much of a naïve,
innocent princess as I am a rebel and a fighter. But I’ve never seen a woman in
these stories that could compare to me exactly. So what does that really
make me?

A loud clawing outside the door alerted her senses.
She slammed the book shut and turned around. It was Ursa, one of Mordack’s
beasts. She had only glimpsed Ursa once or twice in the past weeks and heard
Mordack yelling the creature’s name, but only now could she see the beast
clearly. It was very bear-like, with coarse, black fur and beady black eyes.
Its long, pointed teeth peeked out of a saliva-coated set of lips. Odd fins
protruded from the beast’s back and atop its shoulders. It was small for a
bear, even though Cassima had never seen one, she could depend on her books to
give her a good picture. Since “Ursa” was a feminine name, Cassima decided
that, unlike Scalawag and Sam, this beast must be a female.

“I’m sorry,” the princess said, pushing the book
back onto its shelf. “I wasn’t stealing. I was just reading. You know…”

The beast cocked its head and blinked slowly, as if
in recognition.

“You’re Ursa, aren’t you?”

Ursa made a soft grunt but made no other gesture.

“My name is Cassima…or did you know that?”

Another grunt and a lick of the lips.

“You won’t tell Mordack about this, will you?”
Cassima asked, although it seemed that the beast was quite incapable of doing
this, its body more suited to killing unfortunate intruders, like Dink.

Ursa snarled slightly, and Cassima decided to take
the gesture as a “no.” As Cassima got up and left the library, the creature
eyed her curiously and she eyed it back. It was strange that such a beast could
exist within the castle walls without her knowledge. Perhaps it only could be
seen at certain times of the day or the year, like the seasons or the
solstices. It was a wild guess, but it was as good as any.

Then again, Cassima hadn’t seen Scalawag for several
weeks, and the weather was getting cooler. Perhaps Mordack did something to
them, made them disappear or froze them in time. But it made sense, because
Scalawag had very short fur, and Ursa had very thick fur. Maybe the wizard
employed different beasts for the different seasons…but she could never
understand Mordack’s strange way of living, and was quite grateful that she
couldn’t.

Manannan the cat’s constant monitoring of her
continued, as did his human brother’s attempt to understand his language.
Cassima was still surprised that a wizard like Mordack was unable to understand
animals, but then again, he was a young wizard, and Cassima had never
understood an animal herself, so she could excuse him.

However, there were times in her own home when she
felt she could understand her nightingale, Sing-Sing. The tone of her song, the
way she flew, everything seemed to say so much without words. But there were
times when she truly wished she could hear Sing-Sing talk, especially when she
returned from one of her flights with some strange object in her beak. One time
she returned with a grape that made rude remarks whenever Cassima touched it.
Another time, Sing-Sing brought back a peppermint leaf, which the vizier’s
genie stole and ate soon afterwards.

These little treasures were probably from other
islands, but which ones? Cassima had not been to the other islands in years,
not since the strange “unrest” began to set in and the hostility between the
isles grew hotter. Abdul Alhazred was undoubtedly connected to the disturbance,
but how? Cassima could not even begin to think about it, especially since she
had her hands full with her captor and his cat.

One day, it was so cloudy around the castle that it
was impossible to tell what the time was. Normally, there was always a layer of
magically produced clouds crowding the sky around the island, but now they had
grown increasingly dense along with the natural fog and haze so that the
atmosphere was a dull, steely gray, like the floor of the labyrinth.

Cassima was polishing the wooden rail of the stairs
that led up to the second floor of the laboratory when Mordack walked in,
carrying Manannan in his arms and stroking his head. The cat apparently didn’t
mind this, as he was purring softly.

“Cassima,” announced Mordack. “I am having no luck
communicating with my poor brother.”

Tell me something I don’t already know,
Cassima thought.

“I am leaving to visit a fellow sorcerer who has
knowledge in communicating with animals. It will most undoubtedly be a process
not requiring a wand. However, I cannot discuss my questions with Manannan
while in the presence of this other sorcerer.”

And I’m sure we both know why, Cassima
thought. You and your dark schemes…

“Consequently, I will be back in a few hours, say
around suppertime. I expect my food to be ready by then. Farewell, princess.”

He turned on his heel and strode out of the room,
Manannan’s tail swaying behind him. Cassima counted the twenty steps down to
the ground floor, then heard the gate rattle open. A dull, thundering roar met
her ears. Quickly she raced to the window of the lab and looked out. A tiny,
red ball was streaking across the ocean, finally disappearing beyond the
horizon.

Cassima grinned and clenched her fists with
excitement. She was ready.

The first step was to check the library. One never
knew when something from there would come in handy. After a quick scan of the
books that lasted longer than she anticipated revealed little. But still, she
decided to take the spell book that she had found the enlarging spell in, as
well as the map of the world. Something even more useful might come out of both
of them.

As she was looking at the room for one last time,
she suddenly noticed something that she hadn’t before, even though her visits
were so frequent and thorough. It was a large book, buried under a pile of
papers. Perhaps it had been there all along, or maybe Mordack had only recently
gotten it out. Out of curiosity, she opened it and skimmed through the first
few pages. They were covered with strange, small symbols with no meaning to
Cassima, as well as larger, perplexing black and white pictures, two to a page.

One picture was a profile of a man’s head with a
strange, flying beast with a curved, scorpion-like tail within it, as if the
beast was part of the man, or vice-versa. Another was of a man with lightning
coming out of his eyes, and another was of a roaring tiger’s head. On closer
inspection of the tiger’s head, Cassima noticed that it was combined with a
side view of a man’s face, also “roaring,” making up the right side of the
cat’s cheek.

Though greatly intrigued by the symbols, Cassima
realized that her time was limited. She had only a few hours before Mordack
returned, and what in the Fates’ names could happen in between? Without even
bothering to hide the book again, she grabbed the spell book that she
originally planned to take with her, opened a desk drawer and pulled out the
map she had discovered a few weeks before and raced out of the room, down the
stairs three at a time, skipping the last few and jumping to the floor.

No beasts intercepted her as she ran through the
kitchen and the labyrinth’s door and began dragging the boat out. She wondered
how Mordack would live without her tending to him and his cat. Would the beasts
miss her? Certainly, they were inhuman creatures, slaves by nature, but she had
befriended them. They seemed to be on her side, but still…what would they think
of her if she left them with this wrathful wizard?

Cassima tried not to think about this, instead she
concentrated on dragging the boat and the oar through the kitchen, grabbing a
bag of beans as she did for food during her journey. Then, deciding that she
might need more than just food, she took a sharp knife from one of the drawers
and stuck in in her rope belt. Then she continued dragging the boat through the
hallway, ignoring the crazy organ, through the dining room, almost stubbing her
toe on one of the chair legs and cursing it hatefully, and finally reaching the
iron gate that led to the outside, a place she hadn’t been in months, possibly
years. She tried to raise the gate with her hands, but it wouldn’t budge. She
tried using the oar as a lever to pry it open, but still, nothing happened. Her
elated feelings suddenly dropped down with a sickening thud.

How did Mordack raise the gate? His wand, of course,
but how could a normal person raise it? Perhaps it was impossible. Perhaps he
fashioned the gate so that it could only be opened by magic. Cassima groaned in
despair. The wizard was gone, and he had taken the one little thing that would
have meant escape, the one that – Wait. Mordack was only going to seek advice,
not on some potentially dangerous journey like the one he went on to seek
Manannan. He wouldn’t need any magical weapon…He even…did he…did he say that
the magic he was going to enquire about didn’t require a wand? Was it
possible…no…it couldn’t be…

Even with her doubts, Cassima was already running
back up the stairs, praying that her wishes were true, but at the same time
trying to tell herself that it was nonsense. Mordack wouldn’t leave his wand
here with her. But still…it was a friend he was seeing. He said he wouldn’t
need a wand. He might’ve taken it with him just the same. Forget it. But…

Cassima had crossed the threshold of Mordack’s
doorway. She stood in the center of the room, panting heavily. She quickly
glanced around, the two sides of her mind battling each other wildly. Unable to
see clearly, she approached the bed and looked at the table…

There it was. The same tool that had enslaved her,
stunned her, stiffened her, beat her and turned her into a mouse, out of its
master’s grip and lying there. Cassima picked up the wand, and, unable to
restrain her joy, let out a scream of triumph. She took her poem out of her
pocket and read the last two lines:

When you find love and you are free,

Then a hero you will be.

I may not have found love yet, thought
Cassima, but I’m definitely free now. If this is how heroes feel, I must be
one!

Chapter 20:

Cassima’s first attempt to open the gate by waving
her newly-acquired wand at it was a failure. Maybe it was because she was an amateur.
That was the only reason she could think of with time ticking against her.

After several painful minutes of searching through
the book of spells, Cassima found the incantation for raising a gate (or any
other object, for that matter). Tucking the book and the map under her arm, and
pointing the wand at the steadfast portcullis, she recited the word “Ascendo!”
Immediately, the gate began to rise, and Cassima was able to drag the boat and
the oar through.

For a moment she was puzzled about the fact that
Mordack could raise the gate just by pointing his wand at it, but she couldn’t
move it an inch with all her waving and gesturing. Perhaps the wizard had
become so mastered at the task that he didn’t need to speak the incantation out
loud. It could be that just thinking the word was all it took for someone of
his rank. But for one like Cassima, the spoken word was the only thing that
would get her by these obstacles.

The gate abruptly slammed shut and the wide gap in
the road stood in front of her, too wide to jump across. Cassima looked at the
sky, but even though she couldn’t see the sun, she knew that she had to hurry.
She couldn’t waste time looking for another spell. There had to be an easier
way across the gap. Then she looked at the boat she had been dragging with her,
then back at the empty space in the road. They seemed to be almost equal
lengths. Cautiously, Cassima pushed the bow of the boat over the chasm. Yes, it
did seem to be long enough…She pushed it farther out…the nose was nearly touching
the opposite side…she tried not to let it fall…

Finally, the end of the boat fell upon the other
side of the fissure with a satisfying clunk. A makeshift bridge had been
created, spanning the gap in the road. Cassima threw her oar across the chasm,
placed the spell book, the map and the wand in the large niche in the boat and
nimbly climbed across, trying not to look down. The mast was an inconvenience
to maneuver around, but eventually, she made it to the other side. Another
surge of triumph. Cassima picked up the oar, dragged the boat across and
continued down the path.

Soon she came to a pair of gigantic stone serpents
facing each other, the same ones she had noticed upon her arrival. She vaguely
remembered how the eyes of the serpents glowed when she and the wizard passed
over them. She stepped closer to the two gargoyles, and sure enough, the two
pairs of eyes began glowing softly, a fiery, golden light that somehow struck
fear in Cassima’s heart. She stepped back from the snakes and the eyes became cold
and hard once more.

She remembered Mordack once speaking of the stone
snakes as protection, and though she couldn’t see what they did to protect the
castle now, she decided that she shouldn’t try to pass. But how would she get
to the shore? The sides of the path dropped almost straight down to the ocean,
and though there was little solid ground between the jagged rocks and the surf,
there seemed to be no safe way to get down there…

Cassima tried to think of a way to get down safely.
She couldn’t teleport herself down, what with the limited, imperfect skills she
had achieved, and making the rocky cliff smooth or creating a temporary
staircase was far out of her league. She remembered her recent solution to
crossing the gap in the road. When magic doesn’t work, don’t use it, she told
herself. After a few moments of thought, the answer came to her: A rope! Yes!
She could tie a rope around one of the snake statues and climb down…but where
would she find a rope? Her frayed belt was too short to do anything, and the
only ropelike material she had with her was the thread that she used to
navigate through the maze…if only it were larger…

A light went on in Cassima’s head. She had already
made small things bigger twice, and of course, “three time’s the charm.” So perhaps
magic would work here after all. She took the string out of her pocket and
placed it on the path. Twice its size wouldn’t have much effect. Cassima turned
to the pages in the spell book concerned with enlarging objects, and skimmed
through the enchantments until she found one written besides the description
“Increaseth object size tenfold.” She proudly recited the word, and the thread
slowly swelled from a tiny pile to a huge heap of rope, looking a lot like a
snake coiled and ready to strike. Cassima picked up her new rope and tied the
end around the left serpent. She then yanked on the rope to make sure it was
tight, then gripped it tightly and stepped over the side of the path.

She jumped back up as soon as she jumped down with a
high-pitched yelp. The rocks were much more jagged than she had anticipated, in
fact, her callused feet felt very tender on the needle-like terrain. Another
obstacle, Cassima said to herself. Now what do I do? I need some kind of
protection for my feet. Something tough and durable. Like…

She glanced down at her ragged, potato-sack dress. I
think you’ll do, she thought. Pulling her knife out of her belt, Cassima
cut a large section out of the bottom of her dress and lay it on the ground. It
wrapped around her right foot just fine, but how was she going to keep it on?
She could use some string, but all her string had been turned into rope…she
frantically searched her pockets, and was relieved to find a copious length of
string. Apparently, she had grabbed more than just the length she used in the
maze.

Tying up the cloth on her foot firmly and tightly,
Cassima cut another section out of her dress. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be
wearing it again anytime soon. Quickly, she wrapped and bound her left foot,
savoring the moment of being in shoes again, even if they were only impromptu
booties.

Walking over to the edge of the path and gripping
the rope again, Cassima tried descending over the side again. She could not
feel the sharp rocks through her thick “shoes,” and knew she would be able to
get to the ocean safely now. She climbed up to the pathway again and placed the
oar and the book in the boat’s compartment. She put the wand and the rolled-up
map in her pocket. Then, carefully lowering the lightweight sailboat over the
side, Cassima wrapped the rope around her waist and began the slow route down
the cliff. There were many wide crannies and cracks in the rocks, where she
could lodge her boat as she made her way down.

As she continued her slow descent, she began to
realize that there really wasn’t much dry ground to land her boat on before the
sea. There was only rocks and surf. Her only choice was to drop the boat into
the water and hope it didn’t hit any sharp reefs, then jump into it herself. It
was risky, but it was the only way if she wanted to escape. Cassima rested the
boat in a large gap between two rocks and took the oar out of the compartment.

Finding her footing on the corroded stones and
letting go of the rope, she used the oar as a walking stick, making her way as
far down as she could to the water. Then, Cassima reached up and dislodged the
boat. She gritted her teeth as it fell down, the sail fluttering wildly before
it hit the water with a loud smack. It seemed intact, but there was no time to
make last-minute precautions. Her muscles tensing, Cassima readied herself,
using the oar for balance, then launched herself through the air, landing
solidly in the sailboat’s compartment.

Letting her breath out with a laugh of relief, the
princess drove the oar into the churning waters and gave a mighty stroke,
pushing herself away from the shore and the miserable life she suffered.

When Cassima was several yards from Mordack’s
Island, she checked the map she had brought with her to see if she was on
course. However, she wasn’t sure which side she had actually launched off from,
and nor was she certain which way was north. By now, the sky had cleared enough
for her to see where the sun was. It was behind her and to her left. That meant
it was just about setting in the west…Setting??How long have I been
escaping, Cassima thought frantically, Mordack could be home within the hour!
I’d better get going!

Sticking her oar into the rough waves, she turned
herself northward and straightened the sail. The wind from the south caught it,
and her little boat began its journey toward the northern sea.

Cassima could not be sure how long or how far she
sailed. It couldn’t have been too far…but then, it was some time since she
started, several hours at least, the sun was starting to turn the western sky
red, and the sea was becoming rougher. She had set herself up for danger,
without knowing exactly where the islands were…she could hit Serenia, and ask
for help there…but then, nobody knew much about the location of her homeland,
even her mother told her that was true. She couldn’t be lost…

A dull form several miles off the right side of her
boat gave her renewed hope for a moment, then a groan of disappointment as she
discovered that it was Mordack’s Island again. So she hadn’t gone that far at
all…she had just wasted too much precious time. Now her chances for escaping
the island seemed to be decreasing by the second, with what appeared to be an
approaching storm descending from above. Cursing her turn of luck, Cassima
tried to trim the sail and propel herself away from the island, but the winds
had changed, and now seemed to be pushing her back to her prison, where her
captor would soon arrive.

Angrily, Cassima got to her feet in the boat’s
compartment and pulled as hard as she could on the oar, fighting the strong
waves, but it was no use. She was being drawn back to the place she had tried
to hard to escape. Whether it was an accident or whether the elements were
turned against her, she couldn’t say. But she wasn’t going down without a
fight.

As she continued pushing with the oar, it suddenly
struck rock. The water was growing shallower, much sooner than it usually did. It
must have something to do with this being a “handmade” island, Cassima
decided. She was able to achieve greater force pushing off from the stone
floor, but the approaching, growing waves and the increasing, strong wind were
getting too strong for her. It was as if some creature were swimming towards
her, creating these monstrous waves as it rose from the surf…

Then suddenly, her thoughts became real. A huge,
gray, scaled head shot out of the waters and towered above her and her tiny
sailboat. It had angry, slit-eyes, a long snout and a red, forked tongue. There
was no question as to what the beast was. A sea serpent, Cassima
screamed inside her head. So those tales that Mordack told of fighting sea
monsters were true! And now the evidence he never bothered to bring up was
coming straight for her!

Cassima shrieked and quickly poled her boat to the side
as the creature stuck, crashing into one of the jagged reefs surrounding the
island. It raised its ugly head again, leering menacingly at this tiny creature
afloat in its ocean…and so alone, too…

As the sea serpent lunged at her again, Cassima
jabbed her hand inside a pocket and pulled out Mordack’s wand. In a desperate
move, she whipped the black rod at the creature and cried out something
incomprehensible, but loud. Perhaps she hoped her outburst would stun the
monster somehow, or turn it to stone. A white light shot out of the tip and hit
the serpent in the nose. It reeled in pain and roared in fury only a creature
like it could manage.

But Cassima’s attempt didn’t stop it, of course.
Sticking the wand back in her pocket, her hand now went for her knife…but
no…now that she looked at it, she saw that it was just a small, stained, and
rather dull kitchen knife, and she was being faced with a carnivorous
sea-beast. The reality of her peril began to hit her as she barely dodged
another attack, this one tearing a chunk out of the stern of the boat.

No time to look up spells that would get her out of
this mess safely, no way to slow things down and swim for safety. Cassima dove
for the wand again, but discovered it was missing. It must’ve fallen out, lost
forever to the waters surrounding the isle. Just as she realized this, her boat
suddenly smashed into a huge rock, the bow splintering into fragments. Cassima
tried, but was unable to dislodge her craft or even herself from the clutches
of the jagged rock. They both were stuck fast. The serpent, seeing its chance,
made one last lunge, its jaws open wide, its eyes glowing like coals.

A feeling just like the one when she had refused
Mordack flooded over her, like the seawater that was coating her garments and body
at the same time. She was going to be killed…eaten in an attempt to escape an
island ruled by a tyrant, someone that nobody could ever conquer and destroy…in
this flimsy boat, with the tattered sail…with a stolen spell book and a soggy
map of her world, on which her homeland didn’t even exist. Suddenly, even this
fell out of the crushed boat, and sank out of sight before she could retrieve
it.

As she tried to prepare herself for her death and
the great head shot towards her, suddenly everything stopped. There was no
sound of wave crashing, so sound of wood from her boat cracking. There was no
wind, no moisture. Time seemed to have frozen. Cassima looked around…surprised
that she, unlike all of her surroundings, could move. She felt like a figure in
a painting. Everything was still, inanimate. The sea serpent’s head was inches
from her and her boat, its gray neck still arched, muscles tensed and flexed.
What was going on?

“Over here, princess,” came a familiar, drawling
voice. Cassima turned her head slowly and beheld Mordack, standing with
Manannan and Scalawag on the beach of his island. The wizard was holding his
wand in his hand. For a moment, Cassima wondered how he had gotten it, and was
going to ask him, but she was too exhausted to do anything but breathe.

Chapter 21:

“I have stopped time for a short while,” said
Mordack calmly. “Just around this isle, except for the four of us.”

He waved his wand smugly. “You didn’t think I would
be so foolish to let my wand sink with the sinking boat,” he purred. “I simply
made it disappear from your skirt pocket and appear in the hand of its rightful
owner. It’s quite simple, really. But not for the likes of you.”

Cassima, having caught her breath by this time,
tried to stand up and was interested to see that the boat (or what was left of
it) remained stable, as if it were locked in stone instead of water. She glared
at the wizard and his cat furiously, but Mordack remained cool and unmoved.

“You’d better hurry back here, princess,” Mordack
urged. “Unless you would like to be eaten by that sea beast you were obviously
irritating.”

“Irritating?” Cassima thought. I was
fighting for my life, you snotty boar! I suppose you could do better!

“Come on. The water’s safe to walk on. I’m not
trying to trick you.”

With no other alternative, Cassima extended one
booted foot and placed it on the still surface, half-expecting it to sink in.
Instead, he foot remained upon the surface, as if the water was frozen like
ice. She placed her other foot on the water, and achieved the same result.

“Hurry up,” said Mordack, with a hint of impatience.
Then Cassima remembered what the wizard had said about his spells when he
turned her into a mouse weeks before. They were only temporary. And then,
she had turned back into a human in only a few hours. And that spell was fairly
simple. This spell, stopping time, with the exception of her, Scalawag, the
wizard and his brother was surely a complicated one, and consequently, it
probably wouldn’t last as long. Why, it could suddenly wear off at any minute!

Becoming nervous, Cassima stepped over the uneven
surfaces of the waves, picking her way over the sharp rocks in her soggy
booties, clutching the soggy book to her chest, the knife in her belt cutting
into her thigh. For something so normally delicate and smooth, the ocean was
incredibly hard and jagged in this frozen state. The air was still deathly
silent as Cassima made her way towards the shore.

She was only a few yards from dry land when suddenly
the water became liquid again and Cassima plunged into the deep surf. The cold
winds began roaring again, and the dark clouds swirled overhead. The serpent’s
head smashed into her boat, biting it into fragments. The mast snapped, the
sail was ripped to shreds, and within seconds, it was impossible to tell what
the little sailboat once was.

Cassima was struggling to swim through a deeper area
of the reef. She was still exhausted, and her feet could not reach to the
bottom. Not only that, but she was still holding the spell book under one arm,
making it impossible to swim. Sensing that she was in trouble, Scalawag leapt
into the surf, rapidly paddling out to where Cassima was, trying to stay above
the waves, her mouth filled with salt water.

The serpent had finished destroying the boat, and
had spotted the girl that had somehow escaped its mouth and struggling to reach
the shore. Before it could attack again, Scalawag had reached Cassima and
gestured for her to put a hand on his back. The girl gratefully grabbed a lock
of his ragged mane, still clutching the book to her chest. Scalawag swam as far
as he could with his wide claws and hooves to the shore before they could feel
solid rock beneath them. Cassima set her feet on the ground and let go of the
beast, wading through the shallows towards the beach. The serpent, apparently
not able to follow them in such shallow reefs, let out a roar of frustration
and sank back down beneath the waves and out of sight.

Cassima looked after it, shivering with cold and
fear, before sloshing her way to solid ground. For several moments, she stood
there, dripping wet, her skin speckled with goose bumps. Then she looked at
Mordack, who still wore that same calm, disappointed expression. Manannan stood
beside him, bearing a very similar look.

“Cassima?” he asked, extending a hand. “The book,
please.”

Reluctantly, but knowing that hesitation would mean
something dangerous, she handed the wizard his spell book, which, like her, was
waterlogged. Then she stood, not looking at him or anything else, bearing no
readable emotion.

“Well?” the wizard asked, fingering his wand,
examining the enormous ripples left by the sea creature and the bedraggled
princess standing before him. “Aren’t you going to say thank-you, Cassima?”

Cassima looked at the sea, then back at him as if
she hadn’t noticed him until now. “Oh yeah,” she exclaimed with false
enthusiasm. Then she turned to the sodden beast standing behind her.

“Thank you, Scalawag.”

Then she indifferently but confidently walked past the
wizard and the cat, heading back up the rocky, eroded path to the castle.

Cassima was so upset the rest of the day that she
could hardly remember Mordack’s words and orders. Perhaps it was because of
what the wizard said after he took her wrist and floated over the deadly
snakes’ heads with her. Scalawag simply vanished into thin air, and was there
to greet them when they entered through the massive gate.

Mordack had thrown her to the floor and exploded
with an endless outburst of insults, threats and hard words, accompanied by
Manannan, hissing and spitting with equal malice. Cassima was brought close to
tears at a few moments, but she was beyond crying now. Pride wouldn’t allow her
to let this man or his transformed brother see her weep.

Then Mordack summoned Sam to take Cassima to the
familiar dungeon cell, which the princess didn’t even try to escape from. She
was too weak with fatigue and disappointment, thinking about her parents, the
nurse-dog Ulrica, funny Jollo, and everyone else in her homeland that she had
failed to reach. To look into the wizard’s crystal ball would be of no help.
She doubted if she could even remember what her friends and parents looked
like. Besides, the sight of them mourning over her (which she was certain they
were doing) would make her feel even worse than she already was.

After about an hour, Sam arrived to take her to the
kitchen. Possibly the short length of her imprisonment was due to the fact that
it was nearing Mordack’s dinner time, and he still intended on Cassima fixing
his and Manannan’s food. Still feeling as low as the dirt within the dungeon,
she began preparing the leg of mutton that lay upon the counter. Ursa was
monitoring her, obviously upon Mordack’s request, and appeared to be very
sympathetic to Cassima’s troubles, often nuzzling the princess’s hand with her
broad nose or stroking the girl’s back with her own padded paws.

Cassima tried to stroke Ursa back, but she couldn’t
help wincing as she ran her hands over the fins on the creature’s back,
remembering the sea serpent she fought…or tried to fight. Fortunately, she
managed to finish the wizard’s dinner in a short period of time, as well as
some chopped fish for Manannan. Dinner was silent, except for the sound of the
diners chewing and smacking loudly. Cassima didn’t say a word to Mordack,
neither did she look him in the face. Under normal conditions, this silence
would be welcome, but she was too torn up inside to savor it.

After dinner was over, she took the plates and
utensils, ran back to the kitchen and threw what she was carrying on the
counter, nearly cracking a plate. She then slumped down in a corner, tearing
off her still-wet booties and using the knife that she still had with her when
the seams wouldn’t give, cutting her flesh and chafing her fingers in the
process. She then threw the knife and the scraps of cloth across the room and
lay in silence, hot tears running down from her eyes.

She awakened in the middle of the night, and her
first true realization was that she was painfully hungry. Her first impulse, of
course, was to eat something, which she did. She pulled a potato out of a
rotting barrel and had eaten half of it before she realized why she was so
alert at this time. Her nightly explorations. Her examinations of the rooms she
wasn’t permitted to go during the day. How could she have forgotten? Easily,
Cassima thought, recalling the awful events that had occurred.

Since she was awake, she decided to get the most out
of her regular insomnia and explore one of her regular haunts: the library. Her
feet, still sore from where she accidentally cut herself with the knife, made
her limp up the stairs and through the corridor. She tiptoed through the
library door and looked around at the familiar room, noting that the heavy book
of strange symbols was still lying open on the desk. She was tempted to look at
it again, but decided not to. Those pictures were something nasty, she
thought. I’d best stick to stories for now. Her hands felt chafed and
raw as she took the book of stories down from its shelf and sat herself down on
the floor and opened the volume.

Cassima turned through the stories of valor and
bravery, of the heroes who slew the fierce monsters, solved riddles told by the
most powerful of antagonists and rescued the imprisoned maidens from their
prisons. Rapunzel and her savior. Atalanta and Melanion. Pyramus and Thisbe.
How much they reminded her of her present predicament. Only here, there was no
way that a prince or a hero or anyone, for that matter, could rescue her. The
waters were treacherous and the reefs were unpredictable.

Unless someone knew how to fly over the ocean and
knew where Mordack’s Island actually was…even if that was so, how would she
return to her homeland, a place known by very few who lived outside it. In
fact, there were even rumors that those who visited the Green Isles became
captured by its beauty and could never return to their native country. Cassima,
a person born and raised on the Isle of the Crown, often wondered if the rumors
were true. Alhazred had stayed in the islands indefinitely from the time he
arrived when Cassima was six, but that was merely for power and fortune, as she
found out that night the wizard kidnapped her. Would she ever meet someone who
chose to stay in her homeland only for love?

She put these questions out of her mind as she
continued reading through the stories, the hero always being the same
archetype: an avenger of good, opposed to evil, conquering all in the name of
whatever he stood for. And now here she was, also the typical captive princess,
the damsel in distress, the helpless maiden with no means of escape. She sighed
heavily with the realization of her likeness to all those women in her stories,
and was just turning to the next story, Perseus and Andromeda, when a
sudden snort from the adjacent bedroom indicated that Mordack was turning in
his sleep.

Whether it was her present weak condition or her
ignorance of the movement, she couldn’t tell, but suddenly the most unexpected
of events occurred. Mordack appeared standing before her in a cloud of smoke,
with a very displeased expression on his creased brown face.

“Cassima!” he bellowed, so loudly that Cassima
dropped the book and sprang backwards, nearly hitting her head on the bookcase
behind her.

“What are you doing in my private library,
you little minx?!?”

She was so stunned that she couldn’t answer the
wizard as he stepped closer to her, over the still open book.

“I told you that I do not appreciate you
snooping around in my chambers, Cassima! So that is how you created that
little dinghy of yours! Stole my model, didn’t you?”

Cassima made no response, shaking against the wall
like a trapped rabbit.

“And you stole my wand as well, I noticed!” Mordack
roared, brandishing it before her. “I suppose you think you’re smart,
stealing my book of spells and my wand and trying to escape
through the most hostile waters in this realm?!?”

There was still silence from the princess’s end of
the conversation. Here the wizard paused, obviously out of breath and insults,
and picked up the book on the floor.

“And what have you been reading here, girl! Oh, I
see! Stories of knights in shining armor, rescuing fair maidens from the
thickest of strongholds!”

Cassima burned with indignation. Mordack slammed the
book shut and threw it against the wall, nearly hitting her head.

“Well, I have news for you, princess,” he growled,
putting his face close to hers, her green eyes quivering like leaves. “You are not
going to be rescued by anyone or anything, and reading about
drivel like that will not assist you in any way! Your job here is to work,
not read about some child’s fantasy!”

Again, he withdrew, wiping his mouth with a hand.

“Of course, you have been punished enough this day,
therefore I will not beat you down anymore than I have. Return to the kitchen.
I do not expect to see you in here again at any time, including after dark.
Good night.”

Mordack turned and strode back to his room. Cassima
waited until he was in his bed, then exited the library, turned and walked down
the stone hallway, which seemed even longer than usual, then down the score of
stairs to the main floor, where she traversed the endless path to the dark
scullery, lit only by the dying embers of the fire. There, she threw herself
against the wall, hoping to knock herself out and not have to think about her
sufferings anymore. But her attempt failed, and all she got was a bad headache
as she sank down to the pile of rags, hoping that her sleep would be enough to
get her through the next day.

Chapter 22:

Cassima’s encounter with Mordack in the library was
enough to stop her nightly routines of visiting it, enough to even change her
body’s cycle in a single night, so that she now slept soundly all night and was
up and alert during the day. She was naturally surprised that something so
insignificant in her long, eventful life could have such an effect on her. But
then, Mordack was no “small” thing at all, and to make matters worse, he always
seemed to be giving everyone the impression that he wasn’t.

For weeks after the incident, Cassima tried her best
to forget how the wizard had taunted her about her stories, the ones that had
shaped her life and enchanted her for so long. Sure, they were fantasies, but
they were so much more than that. They created the bases for humankind. They
described ideal individuals and gave people goals to reach for. They weren’t
just frivolous children’s stories, as Mordack called them.

Still, Cassima managed to put the harsh words that
she had been bombarded with that night out of her head, and tried to do what
the wizard asked of her. Possibly her attempts were recognized, because
Manannan didn’t follow her around as often, and Mordack didn’t speak so
viciously to her when giving orders.

However, Cassima couldn’t accept the possibility
that the two were actually acknowledging her struggles to be obedient, it just
wasn’t like them to take other people’s feelings into account. Her only
explanation from their change in behavior was that Mordack was trying to
communicate with Manannan, and their conferences were taking up a lot of their
time. Even so, there seemed to be very little progress between the two. Cassima
was surprised at this, since Mordack appeared so anxious to talk to his
brother. Perhaps it was because of his amateur skills, or perhaps he was just
slow at these things. She could never really say.

One cold day, as Cassima was scrubbing the floor of
the room at the foot of the stairs, she heard soft footfalls near the door. It
couldn’t be Mordack, since he always appeared in his dramatic, magic style,
except when he was carrying Manannan. Not only that, but he always wore the
same hard, black leather boots, and these didn’t sound like his. They sounded
more like soft cloth, or animal fur, or even sandals.

Could it be that Mordack had somehow restored his
brother to his human form? No, Cassima thought. Impossible. All this
time and he hasn’t been able to have a two-sided conversation with him. There’s
no way he could have disenchanted that scruffy feline of a sibling so soon…that
is, if he actually could…

Suddenly realizing that Mordack could be watching
her, Cassima resumed her scrubbing with the dirty rag, occasionally dipping it
into the bucket of water beside her, trying to ignore the pain in her knees on
the hard floor.

The footsteps grew nearer, and then suddenly
stopped. Cassima felt a soft wind from the doorway. Cautiously, she raised her
head to look at the person she assumed would be standing in the doorway.

It wasn’t Mordack, neither was it Manannan. In fact,
it wasn’t anyone she knew at all. It was a young man, of about twenty years
old, standing in a regal pose and looking straight at her. Cassima was so
startled that she dropped the cloth she was holding and rose to a kneeling
position, trying to look more dignified than her slouching, scullery-girl
appearance.

He had brilliant blond hair that seemed to have a
golden aura about it, bringing light into the gloomy castle. His eyes were an
aqua blue, the same color as the cloudless sky above the Isle of the Crown. His
clothes were an unfamiliar style as well. On his feet were (as Cassima had
assumed) tan boots with a soft, worn exterior, tied with brown laces near the
tops. Covering his muscular upper body was a blue tunic, the same color as his
eyes. The sleeves of the tunic were long, just coming to his elbows, with
smooth, well-toned arms and strong hands that rested on his hips.

On his right hand was a golden ring that flashed as
he moved his fingers slightly. Cassima could just make out an insignia of a
dragon on it, meaning that this stranger was undoubtedly royalty. His black
leather belt also bore the sign of a dragon on the buckle, which, like his
ring, was gold, inlaid with emeralds for the dragon’s eyes. His trousers were a
deep, wine red, with intricately embroidered designs on the hems. Around his
shoulders was a long, red cape fastened with a gold clasp. It fluttered
slightly as he stood there, examining Cassima.

Perhaps he was more than a mere mortal. The way he
carried this feeling of light and adventure into the dark castle seemed to lift
him higher than the common man. Still, the thought of a cape blown by wind,
even though there was no wind might’ve aroused Cassima’s suspicions in any
other situation, but now she was much too shocked to notice it.

“Who are you?” she rasped, her voice almost leaving
her in her amazement.

“I am Dorian of Serenia,” said the man, putting his
ringed hand to his chest in a formal gesture. “May I ask who you are?”

“How did you get in here?” Cassima asked, not paying
attention to his last question. “This castle is so well protected…Mordack would
know if you were here! If not him, one of the beasts would…”

Dorian looked as if she were joking with him.
“Mordack?” he asked, laughing. “That stingy old coot? He wouldn’t know his
downfall if it walked right past his nose. But tell me: why are you here?”

Cassima was amazed at the youth’s daring
personality. He was just like one of the princes in her stories, who had no
idea what fear was, even when faced with the most treacherous of tasks. They
walked through hells and traps without knowing, almost as if they knew they
were going to win. Could it be that her hopes of rescue were actually coming
true, in spite of what Mordack said?

But then, what did Mordack know anyway? Like Dorian
said, “he wouldn’t know his downfall if it walked right past him.” This wizard
didn’t even have the sense to take his wand with him, when he knew that she was
desperate to escape the island, so what would he know about stories
being true or not? Why, Cassima’s whole life was turning out just like one, and
he was the main villain, with Alhazred being number two. And now that the hero
had obviously arrived, the irony of Mordack’s ignorance was finally starting to
hit her.

Suddenly, she remembered that Dorian had asked her
something. “Oh,” she said, “He keeps me here as a scullery girl.”

“Are you some peasant that he stole from a village,
then?” asked Dorian. “Some poor man’s daughter, perhaps?”

Cassima was quite offended at this remark, but then,
she was aware that her appearance was like a peasant’s, and Dorian didn’t know
anything about her, not even her name. Not only that, but the experience of
hearing Mordack’s stinging insults had made her almost numb to a simple
question of whether she has a commoner or not.

“I am not,” she proclaimed proudly, rising to her
feet and feeling in control again. “I am Princess Cassima, of the Land of the
Green Isles. The wizard made me a scullery girl when I refused to marry him.”

“Oh, certainly,” said Cassima, impressed at his
manners. Most of the princes in her stories, she was certain, weren’t as
chivalrous, especially to a girl dressed in rags, with no proof of her royalty except
what she claimed herself to be. Rising to his feet, Dorian continued:

“The wizard has been wrecking havoc on my family
ever since I can remember. My father died trying to revenge us, but he…didn’t
succeed.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Cassima, her heart softened by
his plight. “Is that why you’ve come here?”

“But how…” Cassima began, still amazed at this man’s
sudden appearance, “How did you get past those stone snakes and the gap in the
road and that heavy portcullis? And the beasts? They don’t hurt me, but Mordack
told me that they imprison any intruders they find.”

Irritated and slightly suspicious that Dorian wasn’t
answering all her questions, Cassima said:

“You must be very powerful to come so far and to
penetrate this castle without Mordack even seeing you. But how do you plan to
revenge your family?”

“I have my plans,” said Dorian. “But I dare not tell
them aloud. That wicked creature might be listening from wherever he’s situated
now. But I swear that I will return victorious. My family knows that as well.”

After a brief pause and a subtle smile, he asked:

“Well, now that I’ve told you all my history, may I
please hear a bit of yours?”

In spite of her anxiety that Mordack might appear at
any moment, Cassima quickly told her about how her homeland had been troubled
over the past few years, and how Alhazred had befriended her captor, and how
she had been taken away to the island. Dorian listened in interest, looking sad
when she told of how the vizier betrayed her family and was still alive, doing
who knew what else. When she finished her brief story, he told her:

“I can see that you are quite miserable here. I
offer to take you from this island after I do away with the wizard.”

Though it might have been inevitable to her at any
other time, Cassima was taken aback at his statement. Her eyes grew wide as she
stared in awe at Dorian’s confidant face.

“Truly?” she asked. “Do you mean you’ll really take
me away from here, even though you hardly know me?”

“I know enough for now,” Dorian said. “I know that a
beautiful jewel like you doesn’t deserve to live in such drudgery. I can take
you to my home in Serenia.”

“Your home…” Cassima began. “But…I’m sorry, Dorian,
but…I would much rather return to my home, in the Green Isles…”

“You mentioned that place before,” he said
thoughtfully. “Where is the Kingdom of the Green Isles?”

“North of here, somewhere in the Northern Sea,”
Cassima said. “But that’s all that I know. From what I’ve heard, no one outside
the Isles has even heard of it. I don’t know…I just don’t know,” she said
sadly, turning her head away.

Dorian drew close to her and put one of his hands on
her shoulder. A soft warmth seemed to radiate from his fingers, making Cassima
look up at him. “Don’t be unhappy, princess,” he said gently. “I promise you
will return to your kingdom. When I return to my home and tell my family that
the wizard is no longer a threat, I will find where your kingdom is located. I
will search every library in my homeland, I will ask every cartographer and
geographer, I will ask every explorer of the realm it they’ve heard of the
Green Isles. I will find out, Princess Cassima. I promise you. I promised my
family that I would get rid of Mordack, and I swear to you that I will return
you to your home. And I never break my promises. So…do you trust me, princess?”

Cassima turned to him and looked him in the eyes,
her hands clasped in his. This was the climax in every story she’d read with
the prince and the maiden in it. The prince had made his pledge, and now it was
time for the princess to respond. But what should I say? Cassima asked.
Her mind became suddenly blank, and she couldn’t remember what all the fair
maidens in her stories said when they were suddenly granted their lifelong wish
of freedom from their awful, imprisoned conditions. She tried to shape her own
words in her mind, but she couldn’t. All she could do was feel Dorian’s hands
in hers, and try to comprehend what she should do.

Obviously, Dorian wanted to marry her, as was the
custom with all those fairy tales. But was she ready for this? Sure, she’d had
many close friends in the past, but to suddenly marry someone who she’d only
just met, and knew so little of…would that be a wise idea? Then again, it was
usually the way most princesses met their husbands in the fairy tales, wasn’t
it? But how close were these stories to real life, to the experience she was
having now?

“Good,” he said coolly, his voice suddenly growing
lower in tone and with a more distinguishable edge. Cassima noticed that his
blue eyes were suddenly a dull gray, and his hands were gripping hers more
firmly. She suddenly became nervous and tried to back off, but he refused to
release her as his face slowly twisted into a sinister smile, in fact, his
whole body was starting to change. The ring on his finger vanished and his
hands and face became older and wrinkled.

His whole body was growing darker, his skin, his
clothes, especially his eyes. Cassima became wildly frightened and tried again
to break out of his grasp, but it was too late. Standing in Dorian’s place,
glaring into her eyes, wearing an evil smile and clutching her hands in a
bone-crushing grip was the wizard Mordack.

“Thought you’d actually been rescued, did you?” he
asked mockingly, seizing her shoulders so quickly that she couldn’t even try to
escape his hands. “Thought you’d met your handsome prince, eh?”

Cassima gritted her teeth and tried to pry Mordack’s
hands from her shoulders, but he remained as strong as ever.

“I told you not to fantasize over those silly
stories,” he said. “But you just wouldn’t listen, would you?”

“I haven’t been in your library!” screamed Cassima.
“I haven’t set a foot in there since you caught me in there!”

“But you haven’t cleared your little head of those tales
of nonsense, though, have you?” Mordack asked. “Just couldn’t let go of those
happy-go-lucky children’s nursery fairy stories that always have those
‘happily-ever-after’ endings?”

Cassima struggled but said nothing.

“Well, there is going to be no happy ending as long
as you choose not to marry me,” said Mordack, squeezing her shoulders more
firmly. “No prince is coming to rescue you, no king, no benevolent wizard, no
anyone! I warn you, Cassima: no more daydreaming of being rescued because it is
not going to happen!”

He promptly disappeared, the sudden release of
Cassima sending her falling to the floor, shaking with rage and sadness. Her
fantasy had almost come true, and it had all turned out to be a setup by the
very person she was intending to escape. How did he know that Cassima was
thinking about being rescued? He couldn’t read minds, could he? Or was he just
“keeping her in check,” making sure that something like her recent flight
wouldn’t happen again? She couldn’t decide now, all she could do was to get
back to scrubbing the floor, as tears slowly fell from her eyes.

Chapter 23:

Cassima soon forgot about the incident with Dorian.
She had no other choice, since any memories that she held on to only brought
her down emotionally, and Mordack would always tell her to stop moping and
continue with her chores. He had no consideration for other no one’s emotions
except his and his brother’s.

He and Manannan were having their little
“conferences” more and more frequently, and though they occurred often, the
meetings seldom lasted for more than fifteen minutes. One early, cloudy
morning, however, when Cassima was dusting the upstairs hallway with a large
cloth, she heard the wizard appear in his bedroom, obviously unaware that she
was standing only a few feet from his door.

“Well, Manannan,” he proclaimed in that overly proud
tone of his, “I believe I have mastered the procedure for the magic recipe that
will enable me to understand you.”

A loud hiss from Mordack’s bed indicated that the
cat was resting on it. Cassima found it quite humorous that Manannan, though a
cat, could understand both his and his brother’s language, but Mordack, the
assumedly “ intellectually superior” individual, couldn’t understand Cat at
all. Again, Cassima reminded herself that mastering another tongue was quite
difficult, and even more so when the language belonged to another species, but
one would think that a wizard would at least understand some dialect
other than his own.

“All right,” said Mordack. The sound of covers being
pushed aside and garments rustling indicated that the wizard was sitting down
on the bed. Cassima cautiously crept closer to the doorway, trying not to make
any noise. She flattened against the wall on the left side of the door, her
right arm inches from being seen by either of the two individuals.

She stuffed the dirty rag in a pocket and strained
to hear what was going on, trying not to breathe too loudly. She heard the
sound of Mordack placing his wand on his bedside table, then placing various
other containers and jars upon the floor, each object giving a soft clang as it
was set on the stone floor.

Cassima could distinguish the sound of the wizard
mumbling softly to himself, obviously examining the implements, with an
occasional snarl from Manannan, who obviously wanted to know what his brother
was doing. She was tempted to peak around the door and see just what was
happening, but that would certainly mean some diabolical punishment, something
far worse than any of the previous ones, especially since she was spying on not
only Mordack, but also his private attempts to understand his feline sibling.

The next few minutes were filled with mutterings,
relocating of objects and the crinkling of papers. Cassima, afraid that she
would be leaning against the wall for several hours, tried to amuse herself by
watching a large beetle crawling across the floor and the carved, stone symbols
arranged in a semicircle. She had often wondered what the symbols stood for,
but now she suddenly remembered: the astrological signs of the zodiac. How
simple! How obvious! How absurd that something like that could slip her mind!

Cassima was slowly identifying each of the signs as
the beetle crawled across them. Their simple, yet unique forms were highlighted
by the fluttering torchlight, a blood red crimson combined with saffron yellow…

A circle with a semicircle perched atop its
top…Taurus. The bull. Born in the springtime.

A square sign resembling the Roman numeral
“two”…Gemini. The twins. Early summer.

An “M” with a descending arrow from the right
side…Scorpio. The scorpion. Late fall.

An arrow intersected with a tiny, diagonal
line…Sagittarius. The archer. Early winter.

I wonder what my symbol is, Cassima wondered.
Which one of those archaic symbols do I stand for? On that note…when is my
birthday? When was it? How long has it been since my last…?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a series of dull,
sonorous incantations from the room behind her. Mordack was starting to cast a
spell, hopefully something that would enable him to understand Cat fluently. People
are always looking for the shortcut to success, Cassima decided. No
matter how high up they are, there’s always something beyond their reach. But
still, they try to get to it.

You should talk, said another, opposing voice
in her mind. You were born with everything. Now you’re feeling what it’s
like to be on the other side. To be like Ulrica, the poor mutt.

She’s not a mutt, Cassima thought. And I’m
not a scullery girl. Well…maybe I am now, but I’m still Cassima inside, not
some nameless, homeless person. Just wait. I’ll find a way off this rock.

A soft, billowing sound from Mordack’s room meant
that he had finished his incantations and was now ready for the moment of
truth.

Manannan yowled something that Cassima was nowhere
near comprehending, but she could almost distinguish the three, bland,
repetitive syllables of his name. This was probably due to the fact that she
knew what the cat was supposed to be saying, if indeed he was saying it.

“Yes, I understood that clearly,” said Mordack,
excitedly. “Now tell me, brother: what would you like to ask me?”

The cat said something of the same, clamorous feline
dialect that brought no pleasure to Cassima’s ears. She was tempted to clap her
hands over her ears, but since her arm was so close to the doorframe, even the
slightest movement might attract the wizard’s attention.

“You want to know how I can change you back? Why
yes, of course I was wondering about that, but as you already know, I am still
an amateur at transfiguration, and most of my spells aren’t that permanent…”

Manannan growled something that Cassima was glad she
couldn’t understand. Judging by the cat’s present attitude towards his brother,
it most likely wasn’t anything pleasant.

“I’m sorry, dear brother,” said Mordack with
a sympathy that even Ursa could pull off better. “I just don’t understand how
exactly you came to be like this. I suppose it is a long story…”

Manannan snorted disdainfully.

“Well, then, let’s do it this way: I ask you questions,
and you answer them as simply as you can. I’m still having trouble
understanding your language.”

An impatient sigh from the cat.

“All right: Manannan, who turned you into a cat?”

A howl, a snarl, and several purring meows,
punctuated with several bird-like chirps.

“A servant boy, you say? How did this come about?”

A loud chorus of snarls and several dull growls. A
servant, eh? Cassima thought. Well, I never thought that Mordack’s idea
of keeping me here was that original. I should have known he had a brother that
did the same thing.

“He used the same spell you used on that rival of
yours? The Cat Cookie Spell?”

A short meow.

“But how did he come across this spell? You told me
that you always keep your spells archived in your basement.”

Another long series of noises. Cassima sighed
quietly and glanced at the symbols on the floor again. Only half of them were
visible to her. The other six were cut off as the circle was bisected by the
wall. Was she one of the signs that wasn’t shown? An un-thought-of piece in the
tile work?

“One of your former slaves discovered your
laboratory when he turned eighteen?” Mordack asked as Manannan howled on. “And
you decided to kill off each one of them before they reached that…yes, yes, you
told me about your system years ago, a good one, I agree, but still…”

He was cut off as the cat continued his “story.”
After a few seconds, the wizard continued:

“And you suspect this last slave-boy found the
entrance to your lab and poisoned you with the cookie? But, you never keep all
those supplies in your house! He must have gone into the town. I passed it on
my way to visit you.”

Another short meow, which by now Cassima decided was
a “yes.”

“Yes, those young people are always trouble, Manannan.
Always disobeying the rules and playing us for the fool.”

Wish I knew this boy, thought Cassima. We
have so much in common. Manannan then went into another long soliloquy, and
Mordack listened in silence until it was his turn.

“You say that this spell is permanent,
brother?”

A single meow. Mordack rose to his feet and began
pacing the room. Cassima moved away from the door a few inches.

“Impossible! It can’t be!” he cried. “These curses
always have an un-raveller somewhere…”

Surprisingly, Manannan said nothing in response.

“Wait! I read in one of my volumes on breaking
curses that usually the caster of the spell can undo it…makes sense, since that
slave boy is the person who made that infernal cookie…”

The feline meowed something forlorn, obviously
saying that he didn’t think it would work.

“Of course it will, Manannan!” said Mordack, taking
a short step then stopping, obviously in front of his brother. “It has to! Now
tell me: What was the boy’s name?”

A brief meow, though somewhat drawn out.

“Gwydion? A very interesting choice, the one before
him you called Yorick. You always chose strange names for your slaves. But tell
me: what was his birth name?”

Another long, forlorn series of mews.

“He was royalty? Well, well, brother, you
certainly have an interesting taste of slaves. But can’t you remember his real
name?”

Manannan began a series of short, pondering meows,
as if he was trying vainly to recall the boy’s title. Finally, he perked up
with an excited meow, upon which Mordack naturally asked what the name was. The
cat then said something that Cassima was unable to tell, but it definitely was
one word with four syllables.

“Al…ex…an…der…Alexander? You say his name was
Alexander?”

A short meow. Yes. A nice name, thought
Cassima. Alexander the Great…

“But his homeland…Can you remember the name of his
homeland, Manannan?”

A three-syllable meow.

“Daventry? That land’s right on the west side of
Serenia! What a coincidence! This is excellent, Manannan! Now we know not only
your slave’s name, but where he undoubtedly is right now! Daventry!”

Cassima was so intently listening to the familiar
name of the land that she had so often read about that she didn’t notice that
one of her feet was slipping out from under her until it nearly did, with a
brief scuffle of skin on stone. She just managed to right herself again, but a
sudden silence in the room behind her indicated that both the wizard and the
cat had heard the noise.

“I surely hope it isn’t Cassima,” Mordack continued.
“She’s been getting herself into so much trouble lately, I would hate to do
something more to her.”

Not transfiguration, Cassima thought,
gripping the wall, remembering the time when Mordack had turned her into a
mouse. Please, anything but that…Please…

“I would hate to punish her if she indeed was
standing right outside the door now, listening to us,” said Mordack. “I would
greatly dislike having to do something like…this!”

Chapter 24:

Cassima couldn’t see it, but she could plainly hear
it. On the word “this,” Mordack had grabbed his wand from the bedside table and
in the next minute, a bolt of red light flashed past her right hand, nearly
singeing the doorframe. She squinted her eyes and clenched her teeth in fright,
but relaxed briefly when she realized that it didn’t hit her.

Her realization turned out to be quite wrong,
however, as she noticed her fingers slowly turning a sickening shade of blue
and gradually beginning to fuse together to form a solid, gelatinous appendage.
Cassima grimaced in disgust and squinted again, trying to ignore the cool,
moist feeling starting to develop on her arm as the numbing feeling moved
upwards until it stopped near her shoulder.

Finally daring to look at what had happened, Cassima
made out through her blurred vision something that looked like the tail of a
snake, in the place of her right arm, only smoother and slimier. She tried not
to guess at what Mordack intended to turn her into if he had hit her somewhere
else where the spell could take its full effect, deciding that she was lucky
that it had only gotten her on the hand. And after all, his spells were
only temporary, and hopefully it would only be a few hours that she had to live
with this pale, blue tentacle for an arm.

She heard Mordack placing his wand back on the table,
trying to pick up where he left off in his conversation with Manannan.

“I’m certain she wasn’t there, brother,” the wizard
purred. “Now hear me out: We know the name of the person who enchanted you, and
now we even know his homeland. My guess is that since he was born of noble
blood, he was of a higher degree of intelligence than your other slaves. My
hypothesis is that he somehow discovered his true lineage and escaped…but are
there any ways out of Llewdor besides the magic, teleporting fashion, Manannan?”

His brother caterwauled for a few seconds in the
same, raspy cat tongue.

“A ship? Of course! You told me that you caught the
boy down the mountain and in the town at least twice. Someone who has escaped
from your stronghold at least twice doesn’t lose that disobedient streak. Most
likely, that boy hitched a ride on a galleon headed straight for Daventry.
Unless he died…and this I highly doubt. You told me that this Gwydion always
managed to keep you satisfied, even when he did…”

An irritated yowl from Manannan indicated that he
was growing bored with Mordack’s babbling.

“Sorry…so sorry, dear brother…Now, the next step to
confirm my theory is to locate this Gwydion…er, Alexander, whatever his name
is…”

The cat said something that sounded like a question
or a query.

“A crystal ball? Of course I have one!” Mordack
said. You didn’t have to tell me that, Cassima said to herself.

“You were the one who recommended me getting one in
the first place!” Mordack exclaimed.“Remember that ‘Eye Between the Worlds’ that you showed me once? This
model isn’t as complex, but it will surely give me an idea of where the boy
is!”

Mordack rose and exited the room through the door to
his library. Cassima half-expected there would be a soft thud, the sound of
Manannan jumping to the floor and following him, but there wasn’t. The former
sorcerer was still trying to keep his dignity in spite of his furry appearance.

Cassima flattened herself against the wall
tenaciously, still trying not to look at her right arm. She could hear the
sound of Mordack moving books, followed by the sound of him walking across the
room and placing something heavy on a table. She correctly guessed that he was
retrieving the crystal ball out of its hiding place and going into the familiar
trance to try to locate the boy Alexander. Obviously, the time Mordack would
take to work the crystal would take much shorter than Cassima had taken when
she used it.

She wondered how he would be able to focus on the
boy without even a description, let alone a mental image. Her puzzlements were
alleviated when she made out the soft mutterings of “Alexander of
Daventry…Alexander of Daventry…” coming from the library. So that was the
other way of working the orb: repeat a person’s name until an image of that
person comes into focus. Instead of an image-to-image process, it was a
title-to-image process. But how would Mordack know if he was viewing the right
person? There could be dozens of Alexanders in the realm of Daventry…

“Manannan?” came the wizard’s voice, still in that
eerie, trancelike state. “Was your servant near his eighteenth birthday when he
cursed you?”

Manannan made a brief meow. Yes.

“Blue eyes?”

Yes.

“Short, dark hair?”

Yes.

“And if he is of royal blood…would he be a king,
then?”

A negative response from Manannan, followed by a
short, “chirping” mew.

“Ah, a prince. I see…yes…Prince
Alexander…I believe I’ve found him…”

After a few more minutes, Mordack’s footsteps
traveled across the library, and again, the sound of books being moved met
Cassima’s ears. Then he came back into the bedroom and sat down on the bed,
presumably beside his brother.

“This is excellent, Manannan,” he explained. “I’ve
located the young Alexander. He has returned to his homeland, in fact, he is
right within the walls of Castle Daventry!”

Manannan mewed in eagerness.

“Now that we know of his precise location, we can do
just about anything we please to convince him to return you to your original
form. It won’t be easy, but then, what does he know? An inexperienced little boy
with less skill than even I have, and surely nothing that can compare with one
of your caliber!”

Manannan purred loudly, loud enough that Cassima
could hear him from where she stood.

“Now…what would be the most ideal way to get revenge
on this prying brat?” Mordack asked, rising to his feet and pacing the room
again. “Kidnapping would take too much planning, and his family surely wouldn’t
make the same mistake twice…”

Manannan scowled audibly, but his brother responded:

“I know, yes, I agree it was a good idea, very
bright of you, but I think his family would be much too cautious at this time
to risk penetrating and stealing him again. Besides, he was a little baby when
you stole him the first time, and eighteen-year-old youths aren’t easy to
manage, especially when they have a knack for getting in trouble. I suggest we
use one of my plans this time, brother.”

The cat moaned in disagreement, but Mordack ignored
him and continued pacing and throwing out ideas.

“What about turning the royal family to stone? Then
we could just pick up the statue of the prince and carry it home with us! What
do you think of that, Manannan?”

Mordack’s brother asked him something with a hint of
sarcasm, and Mordack, sounding a bit uneasy, replied;

“Well, no, I haven’t learned the basics of changing
humans into stone…but…But I would get around to it if I had time…”

Manannan hissed and spat disagreeably, obviously
complaining that there was not enough time for anything that complex, and that
Mordack should find a way of getting revenge that he could actually do.

“All right, all right,” the wizard said, starting to
become impatient with his irritable feline sibling. “How about placing a large
cage around the castle, with bars so close together that the people within
can’t escape? We would surely have them in our grasp then…”

Another chorus of howls and hisses.

“Too big? Well, yes, I admit it is a big jump,
but…all right, I’ll scrap that idea, Manannan! Sorry! Now what else could we
try…something that would bring the royal family to its knees…something that
would make Alexander realize that he made a very, very rash mistake when he…”

As Mordack continued pondering his schemes and
asking his brother for approval, Cassima came to the realization that her right
arm (the one that the wizard had hit) had somehow become stuck to the wall. It
wasn’t the slimy skin that was sticking to the stone, but rather something
“underneath,” on the side of her arm that she hadn’t bothered to examine. Now
that she finally had come to terms with her predicament, she discovered that on
the underside of the tentacle were several round, fleshy suction-cups, attached
to her skin. Apparently, the pressure that she was putting on the wall had
caused the cups to become fastened to the flat surface, and now they refused to
let go.

Cassima strained to unstick her arm as quietly and
discreetly as he could without the wizard seeing her, but her efforts were of
no avail for several minutes. On instinct, she grabbed the cold, wet appendage
with her left arm, which still had the hand and the five fingers that she
suddenly found herself in great need of. Finally, with one mighty tug, her
transfigured right arm broke free from the stone surface, with no visible
damage to either. Unfortunately, the event of the parting of the suction-cups
and the wall resulted in an extremely loud popping noise, which Cassima knew
couldn’t possibly have been ignored by Mordack or Manannan.

“Ah, princess! Decided to drop by, did you?” Mordack
asked, not looking around the door. The princess felt the heat rising to her
cheeks, and was relieved that neither the cat nor the wizard could see her. But
since they both knew that she was there, she decided not to remain in hiding
any longer. Reluctantly, she stepped into the room.

Manannan snickered at the sight of Cassima and her
slimy, blue right arm. Mordack, however, remained serious as he looked at her,
then at his brother.

You knew that already, thought Cassima,
clutching her tentacle with her left hand to restrain herself from sticking it
across Mordack’s ugly face.

“We are trying to decide how to deal with this youth
from Daventry, and how to take revenge on not only him, but his family. Getting
however-many birds with one stone, so to speak. Now, Cassima, you tell me: What
would your idea of an ideal revenge be?”

After several minutes of thought, Cassima raised her
angry, green eyes to Mordack, her tangled mane of hair trailing into her eyes.

“I think the two of you are insane,” she said
slowly. “You just can’t let things like that go, can you? That Alexander had
every right in the world to escape, especially when he had a master like you.”
Here she looked at Manannan, who hissed and twitched his tail.

“You can’t even muster up the brains to even ask
Alexander if he knows how to change Manannan back! Like you said, he’s
not even a wizard, so how can he know how to reverse such a curse?”

Mordack’s gray eyes grew narrow as Cassima continued
talking, still clutching her right arm tightly. “And these plans of ‘revenge,’
as you call them, aren’t even worthy of being called revenge! They are
twisted, evil, demented schemes. No person worthy of being returned to his true
form would even begin to think of things like that! Turning people into
stone? Encaging an entire castle? It’s disgusting. It’s inhuman. My suggestion
for any future plans of revenge that you two manage to brew up is this: Get rid
of them.”

For a moment, Mordack looked ready to pick up his
wand and finish the transfiguration that he had tried to hit Cassima with
before, but his hand stopped. He put a finger to his chin in deep
contemplation, then turned to his brother.

“’Get rid of them?’ ‘Get rid of them?’ Do you
realize what she said, Manannan? It’s so incredibly simple, it’s a wonder that
we didn’t think of it! ‘Get rid of them!’ Get rid of the kingdom surrounding
the castle…the armies…the surrounding mountains…everything!”

“Uh…Excuse me,” Cassima ventured, becoming more and
more nervous, “What did I just say?”

“It all makes sense, doesn’t it, Manannan?” Mordack
exclaimed, rising to his feet. Manannan meowed in agreement, also becoming
animated with excitement. “Of course! We’ll isolate the castle from the
surrounding countries, but with the royal family trapped inside!”

Manannan howled something of a query, whereupon
Mordack replied, without missing a beat,

“What will we do with it? Why…we’ll take it here, of
course!”

Another query.

“Why, I can miniaturize it, certainly! You remember how
I turned Cassima into a mouse, don’t you? Well, this one will be even simpler,
since the original form of the castee is retained…yes! Yes! And not only that,
but I know how I can make this spell permanent! Since it is only a
simple matter of proportions and scale resizing, why…it will last more or less indefinitely!
This is wonderful, Manannan! I think we’ve got it!”

Manannan leapt of the bed and began dancing around
on the floor, just as Mordack was doing, the sudden enthusiasm pouring from the
two magic-workers.

“What in the…” began Cassima, almost becoming
light-headed with confusion.

“What time is it?” asked Mordack, glancing out the
window of his room. “It’s still early, that’s excellent! I’ll leave
immediately! I will be back shortly. I will simply transport the castle from
its foundations to here…let’s see…a reduction ratio of one-thousandth…yes, I
believe that’s small enough. I’ll aim for that large glass container on my
lab’s desk. I’ve never gotten this spell wrong before. Well, farewell, my dear
brother! I’m sure you will be in your human form soon!”

He promptly vanished in the familiar black puff.
Cassima, still standing motionless and open-mouthed, was so transfixed with
Manannan and Mordack’s exchange of words and obliviousness of her presence that
she had almost forgotten that she herself was even in the room. Now she
suddenly came to her senses, realized that Mordack was gone and his brother was
lying on the bed with an air of smugness about him, and finally she realized
what she had said to the wizard only a few seconds before, and what he had
interpreted her words to be.

“By Samhain’s heart,” Cassima whimpered, covering
her mouth with her left hand as her eyes filled with tears of guilt. “What have
I done?”

Chapter 25:

Mordack reappeared only a half-hour later, and long
before he did, Cassima’s arm had returned to its normal, five-fingered form,
much to her relief. But she didn’t have time to feel much relief, for the guilt
of what she had unintentionally told the wizard was still hanging over her like
a dark cloud. She had never meant to take part in such an evil act of revenge,
but now she had just assisted a wicked sorcerer in doing something to an
innocent family, a family she didn’t even know, but now was in a way
responsible for whatever Mordack had done to them, whatever the deed was, she
still wasn’t sure. The sudden explosion of words from the wizard left her blank
and stupefied, and she couldn’t remember just what his plans were.

The first thing Cassima heard was a dull poof coming
from the laboratory. She quickly ran there, expecting to see Mordack, but
instead beheld something totally different. A large bottle that she had
glimpsed once or twice in the laboratory was there, but inside it was something
not even Cassima’s mind could have anticipated. It was a castle. A tiny,
intricate, stone-and-mortar castle, just like the ones of her fairy tales, just
as intricate as the boat that she had enlarged and attempted escape in…

But she had no time to study it because just as she
was drawing closer, Mordack appeared, standing between her and the bottle.
Fortunately, his back was to her, so Cassima had enough time to dart out of the
room and stand just outside, pretending to scrub the wall with a piece of her
skirt, but at the same time glancing over her shoulder, trying to see what
Mordack was doing.

She had repaired her skirt as best as she could a
few days after her failed flight from the castle, but her thread supply was
running low, and she had little time to make perfect stitching. Consequently,
many of the patches were still loose and ragged.

As she was simultaneously scrubbing and spying,
Manannan suddenly ran past her, en route to the laboratory. He didn’t give her
much more than a glance as he entered the lab and jumped up on the table,
beside the bottle as Mordack continued to examine it.

“Ah-ha!” he shouted, his eyes on the castle inside
the glass vessel. “There you are! Prince Alexander of Daventry, I presume? I am
the wizard Mordack of Serenia, brother of your former master, Manannan. Here,”
he said, moving the cat closer to the bottle. “Remember this face, ‘Gwydion?’”

Cassima couldn’t tell what was going on from where
she was, but she was certain that something evil was afoot. Was this Prince
Alexander really imprisoned inside the container that Mordack was talking to?
It seemed to be that way, but he would be so small to fit in a jar like that…

Finally, the schemes that the wizard had planned out
loud in his room, right before her eyes, began coming back to her: how he had
planned to miniaturize Castle Daventry and transport it back to his lab, along
with all the occupants, just to get Alexander to turn Manannan back into a
wizard. She was witnessing the aftermath of something that she had accidentally
helped accomplish, but there wasn’t any time to mourn about her past errors.
There had to be some way to help out this family…that is, if there was a
way…

Manannan was pawing at the glass, trying to touch
whoever or whatever was inside. Cassima could just picture the person Mordack had
described in his trance over the crystal ball…blue eyes, black hair, just a
year or two older than her, standing in terror at the giant, black-haired
monster towering over him.

“And who is this?” Mordack asked, gesturing to
another person in the container. “Your…sister? Manannan, you didn’t tell me
that Gwydion had a sister! And such a pretty little thing too…what a shame that
her brother had to make such an unintelligent move on my brother…”

Quit while you’re still at an all-time low,
thought Cassima. Since she couldn’t let the wizard hear her at this time and
place, the best she could do was think up insults. Haven’t you done enough
to them already, you feisty weevil?

There was no response that Cassima could hear. Then
the wizard suddenly noticed her and jerked his head up and glowered at her.

“What are you doing here, Cassima?”

“Scrubbing, Mordack, what does it look like?” she
retorted.

“All right, princess. I’m going to talk with
Manannan about which way would be the best to get that Alexander to change my
brother back to the way he was. Clean the rest of the lab, but do not try to
release the Royal Family of Daventry. It would be a shame that my brother’s
only way of restoring his human form would escape, only to be eaten by rats.”

Mordack exited the room, with Manannan walking
behind him. When they were both out of sight and the sounds of their
conversation began to echo through the hall, she cautiously crept up to the
table and looked inside the glass bottle. It was just as she had seen it
minutes before: a complete, stone-walled castle, only tiny. No wonder it had
appeared so realistic. It was real. A real-life castle, only shrunken to the
size of a trunk, with three minute figures standing in the courtyard, staring
up at her like mice under the gaze of a cat. Two were women, one a young blonde
girl, about Cassima’s age, the other a brunette, maybe as old as her mother…and
the third was a young man, who undoubtedly was Prince Alexander.

Even in his miniaturized state, he appeared
amazingly handsome, wearing a simple, sea-green tunic and long, black pants,
and his features…just as she had heard them described, short black hair, and
(though she couldn’t see them) bright blue eyes. His face appeared quite young
for someone of his age, yet mature in a way that Cassima couldn’t place. Then
she remembered how Manannan had told his brother that Alexander was once his
slave, taken from his cradle at birth and raised to serve the former wizard.
Cassima winced at the thought, and looked at the tiny people with pity and
helplessness swelling in her.

“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you,” she ventured in a
soft voice. “My name is Cassima…I’m a slave to Mordack. I don’t know why he had
to do this to you…I’m…I’m sorry I can’t really help you…but maybe…I hope I
can.”

After she finished her task in the laboratory, the
rest of Cassima’s day was fairly boring, mostly because she didn’t get to see
Mordack talking with Alexander again. It certainly wasn’t because she wanted to
see the poor family suffer once more, she only wanted to find out more about
them, especially Alexander.

Near the end of her uneventful day of chores, after
dinner, as she was sweeping the upstairs hallway and studying the zodiac
symbols on the stone floor, she heard a sudden commotion coming from
downstairs…a clattering of boots on stone, resonating through the rooms and
finally transferring to the stairs. Cassima counted the twenty steps, and
before she had finished her count, a flustered man stood at the head of the
stairs, panting heavily.

His hair was brown and untidy, and he had a thick
bead that covered his chin. He had dark, deerskin gloves on and heavy, leather
boots. His clothes were similar to the clothes that the Green Islanders wore,
but slightly different. He was wearing something that looked like a cross
between a tunic and a robe, almost coming down to his knees. His pants were
slightly baggy and weather-beaten, as was the rest of his body.

“You’re playing with me,” Cassima said, standing up
and getting ready to run. “You’re trying to convince me that you’re here to
rescue me.”

“But I am!” cried the man, pressing a hand to his
chest and extending the other pleadingly. “And I have heard of your
imprisonment here, beautiful one. I have come to free you from your prison!”

“No you’re not,” argued Cassima, starting to become
angry. “Nobody knows I’ve been kidnapped except my family and friends, and they
live in a kingdom that barely anyone in this world has heard of! And nobody knows
just where I’ve been taken except that snake of a vizier, Abdul Alhazred…”

“Please, my lady,” begged the man,
starting to plead earnestly. “I don’t know what you’re accusing me of! All I
want is for you to trust me!”

“I will not,” Cassima snapped, backing against the
wall behind her.

“Please,” said the man, a tone of impatience
finally starting to come into his voice. “Come on, girl…”

“Leave me alone!” Cassima shrieked. The man suddenly
flew at her with an unnatural speed, and before she could slip away from him,
the stranger had his gloves locked around her neck, nearly cutting off her
breath.

As Cassima struggled to get air into her lungs, the
figure before her slowly began to change. The beard shrank, the eyes became
smaller and darker, the skin became tanner and the garments grew blacker. Just
as it happened weeks before, Mordack stood in the stranger’s place.

“Not as trustful of visitors now, are you,
princess?” he hissed as he retained his grip around her throat.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have done it so soon after your
first ‘encounter,’” Mordack continued, “But then, I had no choice. I knew you
were in the lab, checking out those three under glass. I’m sure you’ve already
taken a fancy to that runt Alexander!”

“Can’t breathe,” Cassima choked.

“Manannan saw you talking with them! Don’t think we
are both so blind that we can’t see what is going on inside our
castle at any time!”

“Aagh,” Cassima gasped. Mordack finally dropped her
like a suffocating fish, and she lay, motionless, upon the floor as he
continued talking to her:

“I told you that you must not let my private
affairs disrupt your daily work. What I do is nothing that you need stick your
nose into. I realized this was necessary in order to keep you in check, lest
you came up with the thought that ‘Alex’ would somehow free himself from that
bottle and liberate you as well as his family from my castle. Or maybe you’d
think up some crazy scheme of your own, right?”

Cassima didn’t look at him. She was still trying to
breathe.

Mordack straightened himself up, stepped over the
princess, and into his room, where he stretched himself out on the bed and laid
his wand on the bedside table. He was asleep in a matter of minutes.

Cassima finally got to her feet, picked up her broom
and descended the stairs, from there walking past the dining table to the
kitchen, and from there through the heavy oak door to the one place in the
castle where she felt safe: the maze.

She tapped into the maps that her mind had formed of
the labyrinth, and using her memories, she was able to find her way through the
twisting, turning tunnels to the farthest possible point (as she determined)
from the starting point, and back to the door again.

She also located the three most interesting sights
of the maze: the metal grate set in the ceiling of one of the passages was the
first. All she could see was darkness through it, typical for an outside view
by night.

The second sight of interest was the loose stone in
one of the walls and the dungeon cell behind it. The stone was still pushed in
partway from one of her last visits, and she decided that as long as she was in
the maze, an investigation of the cell would be in order.

It was just as she remembered it: Dripping,
stagnant, and smelly, only everything was darker. But even in the darkness, she
could see the uneven, crusty floor with the drops of water falling into the
unreflecting puddles, as well as the rusty chains and clamps attached to the
walls, with objects that resembled bones littering the floor. A rat stuck its
nose out of a large hole in the wall, but disappeared when it saw Cassima, who
grew slightly edgy upon seeing it, remembering her first
transfiguration-related punishment from Mordack.

Finding nothing of interest in the cell, she left,
pulling the stone back in place behind her, but still letting it stick inwards
just a little, so that she could remember just which stone to shove if she
returned. Leaving the cell behind, she proceeded on through the maze, towards
the third interesting sight: Dink.

The huge, gray beast was still squatting in the
shadows, peering at her with interest as she approached. Cassima knelt on the
stone floor and examined Dink from a safe distance…his big, flat feet…his huge
teeth…his scruffy topknot bound up with the hairpin (where did he get that
anyway?)…just as he was during her previous visits to the maze, which were
always extremely short, much shorter than her present one was turning out to
be.

“Hello,” she said politely.

“Dink,” replied the creature.

“You’ve heard of what Mordack’s done?”

“Dink.”

“He’s captured an entire family just to change that
mangy cat of his back into his brother.”

“Dink.”

“I never knew just how low that man would stoop just
to get what he wanted…or what his brother wanted, for that matter…I think it’s
disgusting, Dink.”

“Dink. Dink. Dink.”

“Yeah.”

Chapter 26:

Cassima was sure that Mordack would be interrogating
Alexander about Manannan the first thing in the morning, so she got up early
and went into the lab. Kneeling down beside the table, she squinted at the
glass jar in an attempt to see within. The family wasn’t still out in the
garden, but the castle was still as beautiful and sad as ever. A once-proud
fortress now kept in a large glass jar like a fish. Cassima couldn’t help
remembering her own castle and her parents, and deep sorrow filled her heart as
she examined the castle.

A thunderous yawn came from down the hall. Cassima
was on her feet in a heartbeat. Quickly, she bounded across the room like a
deer and hid behind the staircase, where she could see most of the lab clearly.
Mordack walked into the laboratory, with Manannan close behind. Both of them
appeared well-rested, without a hint of tiredness in their eyes. The cat
sniffed the air cautiously, as if he could smell Cassima, hiding close by, but
then he seemed to decide that it was an odor left from her last time in the
room, the previous day.

Manannan darted ahead of his brother and leaped upon
the table, just as he did the previous day, sniffing the glass jar in interest.
Mordack approached the table and examined the jar closely, as if he were
looking for someone. Cassima didn’t need to guess who.

Presently, Mordack jerked his head forward, as if he
had spotted what he was searching for, then whipped out his wand and pointed it
at the bottle. There was no flash of light, but in the next instant, a tiny
form was standing on the table, near Manannan’s paws. With her keen eagle’s
eyes, Cassima could see that it was (as she had assumed) Prince Alexander.

He screamed at the sight of the wizard towering over
him and tried to run, but Mordack deftly stuffed his wand into a pocket and
caught him with the same hand in a matter of seconds. Cassima couldn’t see much
after that, since the wizard’s back was to her, but she could hear plainly what
was happening.

“Look, Manannan,” said Mordack, his elbow moving in
a teasing fashion, obviously baiting the cat with the hand holding Alexander.
“Look what I have for you.” Now turning to the tiny person he was holding, he
continued, “Take a good look at what you did to my brother, Alexander. Here
he’s doomed to spend the rest of his days as a cat and there’s nothing
I can do!”

The wizard’s body shook in fury as Manannan’s tail
twitched excitedly. “But you can do something about it. Since you’re
the one that did this you’re the only one that can turn him back again…Back
to the wizard Manannan!”

I’ll turn you into a bat first, Mordack,
thought Cassima angrily. Then a new voice responded to Mordack’s angry speech,
so faint that Cassima could barely hear it, but it had to be the voice of
Alexander.

“I don’t know how, Mordack! I’m not a wizard! I just
stumbled across some magic spells and…accidentally turned your brother
into a cat! I didn’t mean it! Please believe me, Mordack! I don’t know
how to turn him back into a wizard!”

Cassima was certain that his first words were lies.
He didn’t change his master into a feline “accidentally.” It was on purpose and
they all knew it. But now, with his mother’s and his sister’s lives at stake,
now wasn’t the time to tell the truth. But she couldn’t blame him for saying
that he had no idea how to reverse the curse that Manannan was straddled with.

“You’re holding out on me, little man,” Mordack said
mockingly. “You’re taking advantage of my good nature…but not for long!”

Good nature my foot, thought Cassima. I
think I’m going to be sick.

“If I don’t get a change of tune from you, I’ll feed
your family to the cat…starting with your dear mother!”

Cassima nearly passed out on the floor as the
wizard’s laughter filled the room. This was beyond wicked. This was just plain insane.
She had never heard such awful words from the mouth of a living creature. Her
mind turned to her own mother, and suddenly she realized how lucky she really
was.

“Remember what I said! You only have a little more
time to decide before your family becomes cat food!” With that, he placed
Alexander on the table, pointed at him with his wand, and the tiny youth
vanished, obviously back within the confines of the glass bottle.

Cassima, shaking in rage and feeling more like
strangling the wizard for what he was plotting to do than fainting at the
moment, grappled for a piece of crusty, congealed slime growing near the bottom
of the underside of the stairs and hurled it at Mordack’s head. It barely
missed him, but the throw wasn’t something that the sorcerer could ignore. He
whirled around, nearly knocking his brother off the table.

“Cassima! Was that you?” he yelled, glancing around
the room. Cassima stuck her head around the winding stairs, but pulled it back
just in time as Mordack directed a blast of green light at her face. The light
barely missed her as she ducked back behind the staircase.

“What the devil were you doing spying on us when I
specifically ordered you not to!?!”

“Habit, I guess!” chirped Cassima, poking her head
around the other side of the stairs, and once again nearly getting hit with a
blast from Mordack’s wand.

Cassima stuck her head out again, and this time she
didn’t pull it back, instead she jumped forward and rolled across the floor,
making a beeline for the doorway.

“Get out of here, you little wasp!” Mordack
bellowed, in such a state of rage that his blasts began hitting the walls
several feet from Cassima’s actual position. The princess sprinted out of the
lab and almost tumbled down the stairs, with the words of “Clean the kitchen
until I can see my reflection in the floor!” following her.

Cassima’s cleaning of the kitchen floor was a very
laborious task, especially because the stone floor wasn’t the kind of surface
that reflected readily. Still, cleaning just it was better than darting from
room to room, doing multiple tasks one by one.

As long as she was down in the kitchen, Cassima
decided to get a start on Mordack and Manannan’s dinner. She sliced several
vegetables and mixed them together in a large pot, adding some of the herbs
that Scalawag had recommended. Then she placed the pot over the fire and added
kindling to the flames until a cheery glow emanated from the hearth.

As the day dragged on and evening began to set in,
she continued her scrubbing of the floor, worrying about what was going to
happen to Alexander and his family. Would Mordack actually feed those two
innocent people to that awful brother of his? It was inhuman…heartless…and
evil, but then, it was also something that a creature like Mordack would do.

As she scrubbed on, she almost swore that she heard
footsteps coming from somewhere near. She paused for a moment, thinking it was
just one of the beasts, then shrugged and continued her work.

Then there was another sound…a soft click and the
sound of creaking hinges…could it be that one of the beasts somehow opened the
labyrinth door from the inside? How could that be possible, Cassima
wondered. But then, fearing that Mordack might me watching, she resumed her
work, blocking out all the strange noises, no matter how real they sounded.

She was so deeply focused on her work that she
didn’t see the man approaching until he was only a few feet from her. She shied
back against the wall, examining the stranger. He was an older man, with a
muscular build, gray hair and sky-blue eyes, wearing a red tunic with blue
pants and black boots. Atop his hat was a pointed cap with a red feather and on
his face was a look of concern. In spite of his harmless appearance, only one
description spouted in Cassima’s head. Mordack. He was Mordack, disguised as
one of those “rescuers,” coming to taunt her yet again. She shivered and raised
an arm to defend herself.

“Don’t come near me!” she cried. “Leave me alone!”

“I would never hurt you,” said the man. “I’d like to
help you…”

The same manner as both of the previous
“rescuers.” Trying to help, just walking in like nothing can hurt him,
thought Cassima. Why is Mordack doing this? Doesn’t he have enough on
his hands??

“Just go away,” Cassima pleaded, near tears in her
distraught state. “Please…I don’t want to talk to you anymore!”

The man appeared puzzled and unsure for a moment, an
expression that Cassima hadn’t noticed in any of Mordack’s disguises. Then he
stepped close to her, as she suspected, but then he reached into one of his
pockets and withdrew something that startled the princess so much that she
almost fell over backwards.

Rising to her feet, she closely examined the object
that dangled from the stranger’s fingers. It was small, golden and heart-shaped
with a crown carved on the front, dangling from a fine, golden chain. It caught
the light of the fire and the flashes that reflected off it temporarily blinded
Cassima’s eyes. It was the one physical thing she had to remind her of her home
before she lost it while Mordack was taking her over Serenia. Awed, she
carefully lifted the trinket from the man’s fingers and gazed at it like it was
a fallen star.

“Wherever did you find my gold
locket?” she asked. “I thought it was gone for good!”

“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you,” the
man replied with a hint of laughter in his voice. “But tell me: who are you?”

The sight of her treasured locket dissolved all the
suspicions and fears Cassima had of the stranger. She poured out her whole
story, how Alhazred befriended Mordack, how Mordack had kidnapped her and asked
to marry her, her refusal and her long slavery, working for her keep as a
scullery girl. Then, to her amazement, the man introduced himself as King
Graham of Daventry, then explained that he had arrived to the island to free
his family from the wizard, and somehow he knew of their being imprisoned in a
glass bottle. He even promised to free her somehow, if he survived.

“I know the glass bottle you speak of!” Cassima
said, eager to be of help to him. “It’s in Mordack’s laboratory upstairs!”

Graham thanked her, and she carefully put her
necklace into one of the pockets of her ragged dress. He then walked cautiously
out, through the hallway that led to the dining room. Cassima looked after him
until she could no longer see him, then went back to her task of scrubbing the
kitchen floor, amazed at her sudden good fortune. You were wrong,
Mordack, she thought. These things do happen.

Cassima continued scrubbing the floor as vigorously
as she could, fearing that the wizard would pop in to check on her, or if not
him, one of the beasts. She then started pondering how this handsome stranger
managed to get to the island. He must have used a boat, but who would know
the way to this island? Well, drop that for now…how about the pair of snakes
with the glowing eyes? Well, who could say…And the labyrinth? He must have
somehow gotten in through that mysterious grate that Cassima had passed several
times…and the door…it was always locked from the inside, so how…he must have
found a way of picking the lock, Cassima decided. That King Graham must
be a real hero…braving the unknown from his homeland of Daventry to rescue his
family…but what would that make me? A semi-hero?

Suddenly Cassima heard a clopping of hooves in one
of the hallways beyond the kitchen. There was a sound of a struggle, and a low
humming sound, then silence. The princess rose to her feet. She knew what had
happened: Graham had been captured by one of the beasts…whether it was just Sam
that could open “doors” in the walls, she wasn’t sure…she had heard the same
sound when only another beast was afoot…she didn’t know where exactly the
humming sound and the struggling came from, but she was positive where her
friend was now: the dungeon in the labyrinth.

Chapter 27:

Cassima dropped her scrubbing rag and ran towards
the back of the scullery. She yanked open the heavy door and dashed into the
labyrinth. This was something only she could do. That man could never get out
of that dungeon without her. The loose stone could only be pushed from the
outside, and she was the only human in the castle that knew where it was.

She slowed down as she tried to find her way,
creeping through the corridors and trying to remember which way the dungeon
was. Keep bearing east, she told herself. It’s east and down. East
and down…

In her excitement, she lost her way once or twice,
passing several “landmarks” that she would’ve visited by following a different
route. She passed the grate, and as she suspected, it was open, propped up by a
metal bar. No time to observe. That poor fellow needs you, Cassima!

Finally, in the space of only a few minutes, Cassima
located the door with the loose stone. Pressing her hands against the crumbling
rock, she gently pushed the rectangular slab, and with a low grinding and a
rumbling, it tumbled inside the cell. Poking her head through the opening, she
saw Graham standing in sudden surprise at seeing her again. With all the
greatest words that the heroes said when they reached their goals absent from
her mind, Cassima greeted the man with the most universal salutation of the
entire world:

“From the labyrinth,” explained Cassima. “I spend a
lot of time down here, you know. With my friends.”

“Friends?” Graham asked, obviously wondering where
in this awful place an innocent girl like her could find friends.

“Yes,” said Cassima, trying to remember some names.
“Like Dink…and Sam…I don’t know if you ever saw Sam or not,” she concluded,
deciding that it could have been any beast that carried Graham to his cell.
“Anyway, I discovered this loose stone that led here – to this cell! Now come
on! You’d better get out of here!”

Crawling back through the gap, Cassima began walking
back to the wooden door, tired by her brief sprint. Graham followed close
behind her, and once again, Cassima was glad to be of assistance to her
savior-to-be. Finally, after numerous twists and turns, she found the door to
the scullery, which was, to her horror, closed shut. She probably slammed it
accidentally when she first rushed into the maze. At first she was mortified at
the thought that it would be locked, but then, remembering that Graham had
somehow picked the lock, she gratefully opened it and slipped inside.

When Graham re-entered the scullery, Cassima was
already on her hands and knees, scrubbing the floor again. Smiling at him
briefly, she quietly gestured for him to keep moving. For an intruder, staying
on one place in a castle full of potential enemies was not a good idea. Graham
nodded and exited the room through the same door he had before, and Cassima was
left alone, but happy. She had saved a king from a certain death in a dungeon,
and he had already promised to free her…eventually. That was enough for her.

A long time passed as Cassima labored in the
kitchen. It could have been several hours, but she couldn’t tell. Her
excitement seemed to slow down the minutes, and eventually she began to grow
bored from her menial task. Once there was another scuffle and a crash in the
hall beyond, but she couldn’t risk investigating again. Her friend was on his
own now. Several more dragging moments passed, then, for the first time, doubt
began to creep into her head:

What if Graham really was Mordack in disguise? He
could have teleported himself to wherever the locket was, picked it up and come
back…that would explain why the wizard wasn’t checking on her…But then, Mordack
didn’t care about Cassima’s love for her home. In fact, what did he do when she
dropped her locket over Serenia? He told her to shut up. Surely he wouldn’t
have remembered her loss for this long…but still…

Cassima’s thoughts were interrupted by a thunderous
cacophony coming from above. It was even louder than some of Mordack’s
outbursts, dust fell from the ceiling and the floor quaked under her feet. It
seemed to be coming from both above Cassima and to her left…Mordack’s
laboratory…could it be?

Her thoughts were quickly coming together as she
sprang to her feet and sped down the corridor, her world shaking madly as she
ran. The machine in the lab had been activated! Graham must have somehow
started that thing, and now the deafening roaring and vibrations, the very
sounds that Cassima had expected the metal monster to make if it were turned on
were now at such a high intensity that the entire castle seemed ready to
collapse.

As Cassima ran through the dining room, she nearly
slipped on several round, hard objects, and regained her footing just in time
to see Sam lying unconscious on the floor, surrounded by several hundred
dried-up peas. Apparently, Graham had tripped the beast up with the food
somehow, but Cassima didn’t pause to contemplate or try to wake Sam. He would
undoubtedly be very cranky when he regained consciousness, and Cassima didn’t
want to be around for that.

As she turned the corner and reached the room at the
foot of the stairs, she nearly tripped over another strange object. It was a
burlap sack, but it seemed to be alive. Cassima could hear the sounds of a cat
inside, and realized that Graham must have bagged Manannan, though she couldn’t
tell just how he had gotten so close to him. I guess you won’t be eating any
royal families of Daventry now, eh? Cassima thought. Pausing to give
the bag a good kick, she began the final sprint up the twenty stone stairs to
the laboratory.

One, two, three…

The machine’s rumbling was beginning to reach an
even higher peak.

Four, five, six, seven, eight…

A sound like lightning filled the air, and flashes
of light came beyond the lab door.

Nine, ten, eleven, twelve…

The lightning sounds filled Cassima’s head and
rattled like pebbles through the castle.

Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen…

The sounds were slowing now, but the walls were
still trembling, like they had after her organ solo.

Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen…

In only a few seconds, all of the noises had ceased.

Twenty!

Cassima reached the top of the stairs and looked
through the lab door towards the upper story of the lab. The huge machine
looked like a beast recently aroused from a deep sleep. An awful smell filled
the room and smoke drifted towards the ceiling. Beside the machine stood the
very person she suspected: Graham. He was looking at the colossal device in
amazement, then he carefully reached out and retrieved something from one of
the two giant metal platters.

Then there was a dark puff of smoke, and Mordack
appeared, standing on the stone floor. Hissing something obscene under her
breath, Cassima darted into the shadows, where she was well hidden but could
still see everything.

“What’s going on here?” Mordack roared. Then he
spotted Graham and fixed his eyes on him like a vulture. “I’ll take care of
you, swine!” he growled.

He raised an arm in a sweeping gesture, and
something came flying towards him, which Cassima realized was his wand. So
you let him take your wand, huh? Cassima was thinking. Some wizard you
are, Mordack!

Her emotions turned to horror as Mordack grabbed his
wand and pointed it at Graham. A beam of white light shot out of the end,
streaking towards the king. Before Cassima could scream “No,” a large, brown
object came fluttering in through the tall window in the laboratory wall. It
was an owl…but unlike any owl Cassima had heard of, wearing a blue vest and a
monocle, and looking very excited and unaware that he had just fluttered
between Graham and a blast of magic.

“Graham!” he cried. “I’ve heard from Crispin – “ But
then the light hit the owl, and he dropped to the floor like a feathered stone.
Cassima gaped in shock. The poor owl had saved Graham’s life, but lost his
own…and he didn’t even know…Cassima felt like strangling Mordack more than
ever. She had always loved birds, ever since she rescued Sing-Sing she was
always partial to all animals, but for Mordack to kill a harmless creature,
even if it was only an accident, was by far the cruelest act she had seen him
do.

“What the – “ blurted Mordack, without a hint of
remorse for what he had just done. Cassima then realized that his wand was no
longer glowing with that familiar aura or light, instead it was as dull as a
plain, ordinary stick of wood. Not only that, but the spell he had just
performed moved much more slowly than his spells had done before. Had Graham
somehow drained the wand’s power? Cassima would have laughed aloud as Mordack
threw his wand to the floor and asked what Graham had done with it, but the
sight of the dead owl lying there had destroyed any laughter left in her.

“You think you can outwit me, little man?”
Mordack snarled. “Well, let me show you a thing or two!”

Cassima nearly fainted at what happened next.
Mordack suddenly transformed into a hideous creature, like a blue, red and
black bat-winged scorpion, with a head like a monstrous, prehistoric beast, and
flew up at Graham. Cassima remembered creature from somewhere before…but where…

Then she recalled the book that she had flipped
through before her attempted escape. The book of symbols she left open on the
wizard’s desk…the profile of the man’s head with that beast transfixed over
it…could it be that those symbols somehow gave the reader the power to change
into whatever creature or element was described?

Just as Cassima was trying to contemplate if she was
right, suddenly Graham waved something at the monster that was Mordack…a wand!How did he get a wand, Cassima wondered. In the next instant, a
shimmering white light enveloped Graham, and in his place was a fierce,
snarling tiger, swiping at the flying creature with its extended claws and
roaring ferociously. So it was what I thought, said Cassima to
herself. Those symbols change the caster into whatever the picture
describes…that tiger with the man’s face merged with it…Graham must have seen
that symbol…but Mordack won’t surrender to just a giant cat…

“Why you little…” Mordack said through a mouth that
Cassima couldn’t see. The winged scorpion flew down to the ground floor, and
the princess squeaked in fear and hid herself from the terrible monster.
Graham, still in the form of a tiger, leapt off the upper story and cornered
Mordack against the wall, still growling. Suddenly, the winged beast transformed
into a gigantic, blue reptile, with webbed wings, a long, scaled tail and a
long pointed snout.

Dragon, thought Cassima, it’s a dragon!
Oh, Graham, watch out…

Before she was through with that thought, the strange
white light enveloped Graham again. This time, he changed into a tiny, white
hare, poised tensely on the floor, its tiny, black eyes fixed on the dragon.
Suddenly, Mordack spat a ball of flame at Graham, who bounded aside and barely
missed getting singed. The dragon jerked its head in the rabbit’s direction and
spat fire again, only to miss as Graham leaped aside again. This routine
repeated itself several times, with Cassima clenching her fists and holding her
breath.

Finally, Graham dodged Mordack’s flames one last
time, and was now cornered, with his tail against a column, his little chest
heaving. Fortunately, Mordack seemed to be growing bored with their little
game, but he apparently hadn’t had enough.

“You think you’re smart, don’t you?” he snapped.
“Well, I’ve got you now!” With that, the giant dragon shrank down to a large,
black serpent that slithered across the floor to where Graham crouched. It
coiled into a ball and raised its hooded head. Cassima shuddered as she
glimpsed what resembled an ornate, red “U” on the back of it. A cobra.

“Sssssssay good-bye, ssssssssswine!” Mordack hissed.
Cassima was thinking fast: what form could Graham assume now? What creature
is wily enough to defeat a cobra…

Her questions were answered as Graham changed into a
slender, brown, weasel-like rodent. A mongoose, Cassima recalled. Yes!
That’s it! Her enthusiasm seemed to fuel Graham’s sudden regain of energy
as he sprung about, snapping at the wizard’s head and shaking it in his mouth like
a bag of stones. After a few lunges, the mongoose leapt aside and raised its
claws and teeth in triumph.

“Ssssssso,” Mordack hissed, still not beaten yet.
“That’sssssss the way you want to play…”

The cobra wound itself in a circle around Graham,
and suddenly the scaly hide burst into flame. Mordack had changed himself into
a ring of fire. The mongoose rose onto its hind legs and glanced around in
fear. There seemed to be no escape now…

The wizard changed into an element, Cassima
thought, so Graham can too. What else can conquer fire but water? Just
as she thought this, Graham changed again…but into his own form…No,
Cassima screamed inside her head. Water, water, water! Even as the words
were ringing inside her, Graham conjured a dark rain cloud out of nowhere and
rain came pouring down around him. The flames spluttered, shrunk, and finally
vanished. The battle was over.

Chapter 28:

Graham walked over to the large glass bottle and
waved the wand he was holding again. A flash of light spurted from the end and
touched the glass, but nothing happened. Graham’s jaw dropped in shock, then he
glared at the wand and yelled, “Now why won’t you work!” and threw it to
the floor. Then he knelt down on the cold stones and began crying.

Cassima peeked inside the doorway, then softly
walked in and stood several feet from him, nearly crying herself out of pity.
When Graham noticed her, he rose to his feet, obviously not wishing for her to
see him in tears.

Graham assured her that he was, obviously not aware
that she had witnessed the whole battle, but then his eyes became teary again
as he explained that he didn’t know how to free his family and castle.

“After all you’ve been through,” Cassima cried,
“There must be a way!”

Suddenly, a flash of light erupted between them and
an old man with a white mustache and beard, wearing glasses and leaning on a
gnarled staff appeared.

“Crispin!” Graham exclaimed. Cassima opened her
mouth to ask something, but Graham laid a hand on her shoulder, communicating
to her without words that the old man was a friend.

As Cassima listened in interest, the man Graham
called Crispin described the reasons why Graham’s family had been kidnapped, as
well as Alexander’s mistake of turning Manannan into a cat. Cassima, of course,
knew all this, but she decided not to say anything in anticipation of what was
going to happen next.

Crispin picked up the wand from the floor, which was
apparently his, and recited a few words while pointing the tool at the glass
jar. A beam of light hit it, then flew back out of it. Prince Alexander
materialized only a few feet from them, only full size and looking quite
spellbound. Next came his sister, with her long, white dress and blonde
tresses, and then came their mother, and Graham’s wife…the Queen of Daventry,
Cassima realized. Embarrassed, she curtsied slightly before the three, in spite
of her shabby garments.

The four relatives embraced each other, Cassima
looking at them with happiness, but still with a feeling of emptiness. Then
Graham turned and looked at her and grinned, then beckoned kindly.

“Oh, Princess Cassima. How could I forget you! Come
over here.”

Cassima shyly approached them and looked into the
eyes of the three people that she had seen only as tiny figures before, now
they were as large and real as her, all with gentle blue eyes and welcoming
expressions. Graham began:

“Let me introduce you to my family. This is my wife,
Queen Valanice, my daughter, Princess Rosella…” here he paused, as if searching
for the right words, “And my son, Prince Alexander, the one who started
this whole mess.”

Cassima, though surprised at his bluntness, was even
more surprised at Alexander’s expression. His eyes were looking at her with awe
and amazement. In spite of her rags and tangled hair, he seemed to be in a
state of astonishment by her appearance.

“All of you,” Graham continued. “This is Princess
Cassima, of the Land of the Green Isles. None of us would be standing here now
if it weren’t for her. She bravely saved my life.” Cassima bowed her head and
blushed lightly.

“My lady,” said Alexander bashfully. “I am deeply in
your debt, and I will make it up to you, I promise. With your permission…I’d
like to travel to the Land of the Green Isles to visit you.”

Cassima, unsure of what to say, nodded, and then, to
her amazement, Alexander walked over to her and knelt down on one knee, holding
her hand in his. Feeling the heat rising to her face again, she smiled as
Alexander rose to his feet again and stood beside her. For some reason, the
sight of his face so close to hers touched something in Cassima. Was it the
same thing as it was in the fairy tales? Love at first sight? Could this be it,
she wondered. Reaching into one of her pockets, she removed the locket that
Graham had returned to her and fastened it around her neck, and the little
golden heart seemed to glow as she looked at Alexander.

“All right, that’s enough formalities,” interrupted
Crispin. Turning around, he mumbled another incantation. The castle in the
glass bottle vanished, and Crispin told Graham that he would find it back in
its original location (and the right size, too, he added). Then, he announced
that he was capable of transporting all of them back to their homes, including
Cassima, whose heart leapt with joy upon hearing that she was returning to her
homeland after so many months. No more scrubbing floors, no more being yelled
at by that heartless creature, no more eating like a slave and working for her
keep within this beastly fortress…

Still, she felt sad that she was going to be leaving
those funny, strange beasts alone in this crumbling castle…she hoped they would
somehow find ways to survive on their own…but even more sad was the fact that
she and Alexander would be parting so soon after their first meeting
face-to-face. She looked at him again and sighed heavily.

As Crispin was getting ready to transport the five
of them to their respective homes, Graham suddenly said, “Wait! What about
Cedric?”

Cassima didn’t know what he was talking about until
he pointed to the motionless form of the brown owl on the stone floor. Again,
she felt broken inside at seeing this poor animal lying there, dead from
Mordack’s wand. But then, Crispin attempted to recite another magic word, and
before anyone could ask him what he was doing, he had finished the spell, and
the owl was sitting up and dusting the dirt off his vest.

“Hooo! Crispin!” he exclaimed.

“Cedric!” cried the wizard. “How good it is to see
you!”

“Hooo, likewise, I’m sure,” replied Cedric.

Her spirits lifted by the sight of the funny owl
alive and well were elevated even more when Crispin asked her if her homeland
was the Land of the Green Isles.

“Yes, that’s right,” she said, almost crying with
happiness and clutching her locket. “I can’t wait to see my parents again!”

Then, turning her head to Alexander, she said, in a
softer tone, “Good-bye, Alexander. I’m sure we’ll meet again.”

“You can be sure of that, my lady,” said Alexander.

With that, Cassima’s world was enveloped in a
gleaming, yellow light, and in the next minute, the air had grown humid and
warm, and the fresh smell of the sea was in the air. She looked around, and to
her delight, saw that she was standing on the barren, windswept beach of the
Isle of the Crown.